A Brilliant Mind
by Appearances are deceiving
Summary: Sakura Haruno is a certifiable genius, but blinded by a childhood crush. When she actually begins to train and discover her full potential, what challenges and adventures lay ahead in the future for her? She finds new opportunities and receives unwanted attention as people realize just how "useless" she is.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey! so this is my first ever fanfiction, in fact, my first attempt at writing at all, so go easy on me. This story takes place directly after Sasuke tells Sakura that she's worse than Naruto after she asks him out (yet again)after their mission to the Land of Waves. And because I'm lazy, you can go read the synopsis then come back here. This I how I wish Sakura's character had progressed/had been structured. Im assuming you all know what the character look like so I'm not bothering to describe them, unless its necessary to the story. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto blah blah blah.**

_"Thoughts"_

"Speaking"

It was late in the afternoon, the sun just beginning its descent over the horizon. A pair of blue sandalled feet dangled above a slow moving river. These feet belonged to one Sakura Haruno, a currently depressed kunoichi of the Village Hidden in the Leaf.

_"He's right you know. In all our missions, I'm the one who does the least. The one who always has to be protected."_ She thought, releasing a long sigh.

For once, her inner persona was silent.

_"Is this where we really want to be? Sasuke-kun and Naruto are just going to continue to grow and we're going to be left behind."_

_"Maybe if you start now, you can catch up."_

Sakura released another defeated sigh. Thinking, _"But I have no talent! I'm smart, that's about it! The boys are way ahead of me in everything else!"_

_"You idiot!"_

Sakura flinched at the volume. Inner Sakura probably would be slapping her if she could.

_"We have a gift that most people don't! We, or, I guess you, are a certifiable genius! With intelligence, everything is made easier. You can develop physical capabilities, but it's much harder to develop mental strength."_

Sakura was shocked. _"Where did all this come from?"_ she queried.

_"It's always been here. This is that nagging feeling you always had, but were too overwhelmed with Sasuke-kun. Now that you're actually thinking about this, I can bring forth what you already know."_

Sakura pondered this for a moment. Furrowing her brow in confusion, _"You know, I don't think we've ever been over this. What are you exactly?"_ She asked, curious as to where the ditzy, Sasuke obsessed inner went.

_"I am you, but I am not you."_

"That's helpful." Sakura frowned.

_"If you would let me finish..."_

"Oh. Sorry." She blushed.

_"As I was saying, I am you in the sense that your goals, wishes, desires, essentially, what makes you, you, are also what makes me. However, I am not you because I am also capable of independent thought. I don't know how or why, but that's that. Whenever you think of something, even just your subconscious, it's as if my mind is synced with yours but we take alternate pathways from then on. Like a tree."_

_"Ah. I see. The roots and trunk being the starting point and the branches being the separate ways we think about them?"_

_"Yes. So now, because you're actually thinking about improving yourself, so am I. Sasuke-kun aside."_

Sakura was starting to get a headache thinking about this. Pushing her obvious mental illness aside, she pondered the idea of her actually training. Part of her had always been afraid, afraid to fail, so she never bothered to try. But now, realizing that it was get better or be left behind, there was significantly more motivation. With a determined gleam in her eye, she turned inward.

_"Okay, we've determined that there are more important things than Sasuke-kun. So, what's the plan?"_ She asked, feeling a weight lift from her shoulders as she let herself let go of her childhood crush. It wasn't as hard she she thought it would be.

_"Easy. We train. Physically, spiritually, mentally. Physical training in the morning, meditation in the afternoon, weapons and ninjutsu in the evening, and scrolls at night."_

Sakura nodded and stood up, stretching slightly. She then strode off to Hokage tower to talk to someone who had a vast amount of knowledge that she could utilize.

* * *

"Sarutobi-sama." Sakura said, bowing politely. Luckily the tower was relatively empty.

"Ah, Sakura-chan, what can I do for you?" The old man said kindly, from behind his mountains of paperwork.

"I would like access to the scroll vaults, as many as I can get. I'm looking to increase my training," She explained. She quickly added, "I promise I'll take good care of them!" Seeing the Hokage's observing stare, she began to fidget.

"Uhm...Sarutobi-sama?" She asked timidly.

The old man started, "Ah yes! My apologies Sakura-chan, I was merely observing what a change a little determination can make in a person," he said, smiling wisely. He handed out a small slip of paper. "This will get you access to vaults 1 and. Now I know they're below your level, so just go though them and check if there's anything you missed or need a refresher on. Then come back and see me. I'll write you another slip for vaults 3 and 4."

Sakura stood, shocked. She grasped the paper, checking to see that he was indeed telling the truth. She had honestly expected to be declined.

"B-but sir... vaults 3 and 4 are for high ranking chunnin and low ranking jounin! Even vault 2 is designed for a chunnin!" She exclaimed, flustered.

Sarutobi smiled, "Yes, that's true, but you are good enough to handle higher level scrolls," he remarked casually, "just promise me you'll work hard."

Sakura nodded vigorously, still in shock. With a final smile, Sarutobi returned to his paperwork, an obvious dismissal. Sakura exited the office, hearing a final, "good luck," before she closed the door. After a couple minutes, the information finally sunk in. Sakura grinned, letting out a small girlish squeal, to which Inner Sakura raised an eyebrow. She quickly raced off to the scroll vaults to pick up her new treasures.

After getting some strange looks, she exited with three new scrolls. One each for taijustsu, genjutsu, and ninjutsu. Sarutobi was right however, these vaults were too low ranking for her mind. She had quickly ran through vault 1, finding nothing she didn't already know from reading and watching other shinobi train. Vault 2 was better, but not by much. She would be done in a few days.

Nonetheless, it was a great way to end the first day of the rest of her life.

**Hope you liked it! Short chapter, I know. Please review! Or don't, but it would be nice if you did.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi, me again! Another chapter! I was honestly so surprised at the attention the first chapter received, I thought there would be like, three views. Thank you guys! And thanks so much for the reviews! They really inspired me to post this chapter! Let me know what you think!**

Disclaimer : Still don't own.

_"Thinking" / memories_

"Talking"

*Beep**Beep**Beep**Beep*

Sakura groaned, immediately wishing she hadn't stayed up all night reading then setting her alarm clock to 4am.

Resisting the urge to go back to sleep, Sakura dragged herself out of bed and headed to her washroom to take a quick shower. She then proceeded to get dressed, packing up everything she needed for the day into a scroll.

Yawning, she walked to the kitchen of her single apartment, grabbing an apple. She sighed, recalling how she came to possess this apartment.

_"Women are not shinobi!"_

_"You're a disgrace to our clan!"_

_"Get out!"_

Little did anyone know, but Sakura's family absolutely despised her want to be a shinobi and had kicked her out when she started to attend the academy. Only Sarutobi had noticed her wandering the streets at night and set up this small apartment for her, funding her living and shinobi expenses until she became a genin and started making her own money off of missions. She never told anyone this, mostly because she was ashamed of her past. So everyone believed she was just a spoiled civilian wanna-be. She let them.

It was better than the pity that she saw people give Naruto and Sasuke-kun.

Shaking her head free of her wandering mind, she threw out the core of her apple, grabbing her pack and heading to the training grounds. She looked inside her head as she leaped from rooftop to rooftop.

_"So, the plan?"_ She questioned.

_"Strength, speed and stamina. Taijustsu incorporates all of these things, so we will train with this. Best go warm up and stretch though."_

She nodded, arriving at the deserted Team 7 training ground. She dropped her pack under a large tree and started to jog one lap around the large training grounds, passing the rest of the training grounds. She ran by another of the rookie team's training grounds, seeing a young boy around her age practicing his taijustsu katas.

She slowed down, observing him silently, watching his movements and trying to ignore his strange appearance.

With a bowl-haircut, bushy eyebrows and a skin tight green jumpsuit, he certainly made for an odd picture.

Her eyes widened as he executed a perfect series of advanded taijustsu, faster than anything she had ever seen.

Looking closer, her eyes widened even more as she couldn't see any detectable use of chakra.

"That speed...it's all him..."

_"You should go enlist his help. Having experience always helps,"_ Inner Sakura advised.

Nodding, Sakura approached slowly. "Uhm...excuse me?" She asked, seeing him stop suddenly and turn to look at her. Suddenly he lit up, flashing right in front of her, startling her.

"Greetings! You are Sakura-san correct?" He asked, holding one of her hands in two of his. At her shocked nod, he flashed a blinding smile, "I remember you from the academy! You are a year after me! You are the loveliest woman I have ever seen! I am Lee. Would you give me the great honour of being your boyfriend?" He asked rapidly.

She blushed, stunned at his blunt and quick nature, stuttering, "o-oh uhm, sorry Lee-san, but I'm not looking for anything right now. It's nice to meet you though," she said with a smile, gently tugging her hand from his grasp. He was not deterred though, "Fear not, Sakura-san! I will wait until the end of eternity for you-"

"Lee-san?" She interrupted.

He looked at her attentively.

"That taijustsu..." She said, trailing off, unsure of what to say.

"Ah yes! The great Gai-sensei taught me! Are you interested in taijustsu?"

At her nod, "I've never really learnt, but I would like to-"

"Then it is settled! You will become my apprentice! I shall aid you in the ways of taijustsu as I know the great Gai-sensei is unfortunately busy and cannot take on another student! It will be beneficial to my training as well!" He declared, grabbing her arm and pulling her to the grounds. She yelped, shocked at this turn of events.

* * *

For the next four hours, she was mercilessly beaten down, kicked, punched, and basically made a fool off as Lee instructed her on basic taijustsu stances, then left her to fend against his attacks, stopping every now and then to correct her form and technique.

"That should be good for today! Meet here tomorrow at dawn for our next session! And don't forget to purchase those weights! Your youth shines bright! Farewell!" Exclaimed Lee, grinning and disappearing with a flourish as she gasped for air, lying flat on her back on the hard ground.

"Why did I decide to ask him?" She said aloud, glaring at her Inner.

_"Hey no pain no gain."_ Inner Sakura said, unsympathetic, _"Hey now you can try that healing jutsu we read."_

Sitting up painfully, Sakura concentrated, controlling her chakra, seeing it glow green on her palm. She slowly ran it over her worst bruises, cuts, and sore muscles, envisioning the cuts sealing, bruises healing, and muscles repairing, reducing the pain significantly.

She slowly stood, _"Well, not perfect, but the rest are cosmetic anyways."_

_"Look at you, not caring about looking good. I'm impressed,"_ Inner Sakura teased, much to her outer persona's chagrin.

_"Shut up,"_ she replied, ignoring her as she headed back to her team's training ground. She checked her bag, verifying that everything was in order and grabbed a quick snack, pondering her plans for the next couple of hours.

_"So mediating, right? To expand our chakra reserves?"_

_"Yes, when you mediate and expand your chakra, focusing, you can exercise your chakra reserves. Remember that paragraph we read back in the academy?"_

_"Yeah, and we can also use our chakra to stand on the water to intensify that. Like the tree walking. I remember we theorized that but Iruka-sensei wouldn't listen to us,"_ she thought with a frown, walking over to the river.

She took a deep breath, focusing her chakra and taking slow steps onto the water, changing the amount of chakra to properly balance her, her natural ability to manipulate chakra making this like a duck taking to water.  
Sakura took a seat on the river, crossing her legs and closing her eyes, focusing on circulating and expanding her chakra.

_"Okay, I'll just continue this until the rest of the boys come. It's only 9 after all. We're supposed to meet at 12."_

In this state of mind, Sakura was capable of prolonged heightened senses as she used her chakra, expanding her aura and retracting it. So she was aware when Lee passed by, stopping briefly to observe her, but deciding not to interrupt her training. She also knew that Team 10 passed by, but didn't notice her, on their way to a mission.

It was surprisingly easy to maintain this style of training, likely because it required a lot of mental patience as well as focus. Both of which Sakura discovered she possessed, when she wasn't too busy chasing after a boy who hated her.

She smiled inwardly, understanding that she would always be there for him as a friend, but was better off without him as a significant other. It was more a competition with Ino than anything, that kept her coming back.

She exhaled slowly, feeling a familiar presence on the edges of her aura, and focused harder, ignoring the distraction even as she surprised herself with how far she was able to extend her aura.

_"I knew it would work, silly Iruka-sensei,"_ she thought.

_"See? With your intelligence, we can make training way more efficient. No trial and error. Plus you already have talent, we just need to develop it,"_ Inner Sakura commented.

"Sakura-chan! What happened?" A loud voice inturrupted, referring to her battered body.

_"Should we answer him?"_

_"I suppose so. You are turning over a new leaf, so best make amends. We've trained enough for now,"_ replied Inner Sakura.

Opening her eyes slowly, blinking to adjust to the bright noon sun, she cracked a smile at Naruto's dumbfounded face.

"Hey Naruto."

"Sakura-chan, what were you doing?" The blonde questioned, glancing at her many injuries.

She smiled at his enthusiasm, "Practicing taijustsu, chakra control, and expanding my reserves," she said, standing up slowly and walking over to him. She sweat dropped at his confused look, "I'm just training Naruto."

"Ah okay!"

"Listen...Naruto, can I talk to you about something?" She asked nervously, patting the spot beside her on the bridge. He sat down wordlessly, sensing her serious tone, his face clearly questioning. She took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry Naruto."

"W-what? Saku-"

"No, Naruto, hear me out. I know I haven't treated you very well in the past, and I wanted to apologize. I was stupid and a terrible person and I'm trying to change. I won't make excuses, but I really hope you can forgive me and we could start over?" She said quietly, glancing up to look at his bright blue orbs as he processed what she said. She averted her eyes as he was silent for what felt like a long moment.

_"I knew it. I screwed things up too badly. He hates me-"_

"urk," she vocalized as she was gripped in a bone-crushing hug. Naruto was clinging to her, babbling something happily as she gasped for breath, "N-Naruto! Air! N-need air!"

He released her, scratching the back of his head and grinning sheepishly, "ah, sorry Sakura-chan."

She gulped in deep breaths of air, "Baka." She said affectionately, giving him a much gentler hug to which he returned. In the midst of this, she heard him exclaim, "Teme! You're late!" Releasing her as he stood up and pointed at her ex-crush. She glanced over to see Sasuke with a brow raised as he observed them.

Sakura smiled softly, "Morning Sasuke-kun." She said, not expecting an answer. She looked away at Naruto, who was still raging about something she didn't know, and chuckled, missing the surprise in Sasuke's eyes as he pondered her lack of attention towards him.

_"Something's changed..."_ He thought.

"Sakura."

She turned her head in his general area, awaiting the question.

"What happened to you?"

He waited for the blush to arrive, but it never did. She chuckled and rubbed the back of her head, "Just training. Is it really that bad?" She asked rhetorically. She sighed, seeing Naruto's concerned gaze and Sasuke's suspicious one.

_"Well, may as well give this another shot,"_ she thought, lifting her hands and concentrating to bring out the healing chakra to her palms. She ran her hands over her body, closing her eyes to focus on healing. When she opened her eyes, she cracked a smile seeing her unblemished skin.

_"See? You can do it."_

Sakura looked up to meet her teammates shocked gazes.

"Woah! Sakura, when did you learn that?" Yelled Naruto. She blushed, "uhm...last night?" She looked down, missing the incredulous gazes of Naruto and the more subdued one of Sasuke.

"That's so cool, Saku-chan!" Gushed Naruto.

Sakura smiled and stood up to retrieve her pack from under the tree. "Thanks Naruto-kun." She replied, sitting back down, with an apple and her new scrolls in hand, having stopped by the vault this morning to return the finished ones and get more. Her eyes scanned through it quickly as she nibbled on her apple.

* * *

3 hours later, the apple was no more and a small pile of scrolls was building up on the bridge. Sakura's notebook was quickly filling up with key points, ideas and theories as she read. Naruto had fallen asleep long ago and Sasuke was practicing his accuracy with shuriken.

"Yo."

"Morning Kakashi-sensei." Sakura greeted, not looking up from her notes. She had been practicing circulating and expanding her chakra as she read, so she wasn't startled by Kakashi when he appeared on the railing behind her. As she finished another scroll, she glanced up at Kakashi-sensei, who was reading over her shoulder with a surprised look in his eye.

_"People seem to be surprised with our capabilities."_ Inner Sakura remarked.

"Sakura, these theories are incredibly complex. You came up with these?" He asked, a now-awake Naruto and Sasuke listening closely.

Sakura nodded, a light blush covering her cheeks.

"Ah. I see." He said, a calculating gleam in his eye, "Well, I just came by to let you know that we're off for the day. Ja ne!" He said, much to the irritation of his students. Sakura rolled her eyes and stood up, packing up all her things.

"Well, I'm going to go train. Feel free to come along." She invited, walking to the training grounds. She heard two pairs of feet follow her as she took a place at the centre of the training grounds. Ignoring her observers, she paused. _"Alright. Now, ninjutsu is nothing more than a specific release of chakra, aided by handseals."_

_"Yes, so if you perfect chakra control, you should be able to perform any jutsu. Lets stick to expanding our repertoire of jutsus first, start with water jutsus today,"_ suggested Inner Sakura.

Sakura nodded, a determined glow around her, her mind working out tactics, memorizing handseals, and recalling jutsus previously learnt. She raised her arms, summoning 3 clones, instructing them to attack her.

With a deep breath, she focused and formed hand seals.

"Water style: Water wall!" She yelled, a wall of water rising to block the barrage of kunai heading for her. Not missing a beat, she quickly replaced herself with a water clone, using the wall as a distraction as she ran through the hand signs of another jutsu in the refugee of a tree.

_"With practice, we'll be faster at this."_

She watched her water clone get struck down as the wall fell while she perfected the jutsu despite having only read it in a scroll, her natural ability to manipulate chakra as well as her analytical mind allowing her to work out the appropriate amount of chakra to put into a jutsu to execute it efficiently.

"Water style: water dragon!" She yelled, leaping high up off the tree, an enormous water dragon forming beneath her, rising to catch her on its head as it roared, breathing out a jet of water instead of fire, as was traditional. As the jet of water reached her clones, she saw them erect small barriers, just enough to keep the jutsu from destroying them.

That hadn't been Sakura's goal however. As the water soaked them she yelled, "Water style: water prison!"

Taking a move from Zabuza's handbook, the clones were all trapped as the water was all connected to the large beast on which she rode upon. Delegating some of her chakra to her feet to maintain the barrier, she ran through more hand signs, pulling out several kunai.

"Water style: typhoon vortex."

As she finished her sentence she released the kunai into the water prison as the water began to rotate, eventually spinning and raging like a typhoon, the kunai caught in the current, whizzing around like small deadly bullets as they too were spun in the raging water, quickly eliminating the clones. Panting slightly, Sakura released the jutsus, taking stock internally.

_"No injuries, just some scrapes. Chakra is depleted 60%. Well, to be fair, I didn't have much to start with."_

She cracked a grin, proud of her accomplishments. It was by no means perfect, she was still weak and couldn't last long, but she had made such progress just by one determined day. All of her future difficulties lied in training her body to respond as quickly and efficiently as her mind, which would take time.

She surprised herself at how natural it was to determine the correct amount of chakra to use based on the nature of a jutsu and it's hand seals. Now that she was taking training seriously, she was thriving. It was almost as if her brain was built for the quick precision that came with a shinobi lifestyle.

Looking up, she met the shocked gazes of Naruto and Sasuke. She blushed and looked away as Naruto cried,

"Whaa-Sakura-chan! When did you get so good?"

The question was innocent, but it still stung slightly, reminding her of how useless she used to be. She smiled mysteriously at Naruto, ignoring his question. Looking at the falling evening sky, she remarked, "I'm hungry. Ramen?" She watched Naruto light up, queries forgotten as he grabbed her arm, dragging her in the direction of Ichiraku's as she sweatdropped, smiling at Sasuke as she flew by.

* * *

Sakura sighed, patting her stomach as she stretched. She stood, meeting the annoyed gaze of Sasuke and the ramen overdosed face of Naruto. She had continued to avoid their questions, skillfully using distractions or giving vague, useless answers. She didn't want to let them know what brought about this revelation, just that it happened and she was better because of it.

She yawned, "I'm going to head home. Bye guys!" She called, exiting the stand and walking in the direction of home. She stopped by a store to look at some weights but saw so many different kinds. _"Screw it, I'll get Lee-san to come with me,"_ and walked home, dropping her pack and collapsing on her bed.

She sighed as Inner Sakura berated her to get up and clean up. She stood back up, walking into the bathroom to take a hot bath, grabbing her last scroll to read as she soaked. She then proceeded to climb into bed for a well-deserved rest.

**Another chapter done! This one is significantly longer than the first one and I fixed some errors, and changed some things based on your reviews. I know the pace is a bit fast, but I'm trying to get the point across that Sakura is a genius and is capable of great things. Think Shikamaru if he actually tried. Anyways I love you guys! Please review!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

**Hi guys! Thanks for all your advice, its super helpful! I always try to use your advice when im writing. I got a suggestion to create some OCs for Sakura to spar with which is a great idea, so thanks Kason-sama! Ill definitely do that later on, but for now I'm going to stick to clones and shadow boxing as Sakura just a genin and isn't really "powerful" yet so other shinobi don't have a reason to offer to train with her yet.**

**Oh and to answer a question, yes, I will be putting pairings later, as soon as I finish developing Sakura as well as her relationships with the other characters. If you have any suggestions I would love to hear them as I only have a few vague ideas of who to pair her with. Thanks again and enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto blah blah blah.**

_"Thoughts"_

"Speaking"

For the next few weeks, Sakura continued to train, progressing quickly compared to her academy self, thanks to her newfound determination and Lee's harsh regime. She now wore ankle and leg weights that totalled her body weight; but were still a mere fraction of what Lee wore.

Nonetheless, she could hardly stand for the first couple of days, but with lots of training and effort, they eventually became much easier to deal with. She had also gained access to vaults 3 and 4, after completing her previous ones, much to the amusement of the Hokage. She had been denied access to vaults 5 and 6 though, which were really meant for high-level jounin. Sarutobi had promised however, that on the day she became a chunin, he would grant access to those.

Her speed and strength increased dramatically, alongside her taijutsu abilities, but were still lacking compared to Sasuke's and this weakness frustrated her. She had gotten used to her mental and spiritual abilities developing so quickly that this slow progression of physical strength was painful.

Despite this setback, her knowledge continued to grow as she read scroll after scroll, committing the information to memory and using it to create new theories about how to make training more effective, how to make jutsus more powerful, how to increase the potency of a genjutsu, among other things.

She expanded her practical use of ninjutsu, practicing with a wide varieties of jutsus from the scrolls she had learnt as well as creating some of her own to suit her style. She had also become reasonably proficient at medical ninjutsu, being able to handle most types of injuries, ranging from simple cuts to broken bones.

Her chakra reserves were far from lacking as well. Thanks to her improvements on the current way to train chakra, she was able to rapidly increase her reserves to that of a mid-ranking jounin. What she lacked was practical experience in the field as well as physical abilities.

Nonetheless, she was quickly surpassing Naruto and Sasuke and yet was still the most ignored member of Team Seven. Actually taking her training seriously had opened her eyes to the favouritism that existed within the team.

During training, Kakashi would always spend more time with Sasuke and always gave him the easier jobs when they completed the menial labour that D-ranked missions consisted of.

Sakura was unsure of the reason as Kakashi had no real reason to be kinder to Sasuke than the rest of them, but she deemed it not worthwhile to complain about, for fear of destroying the small amount of teamwork that they seemed to have gained back.

However, despite Kakashi's ignoring of Sakura, he had noticed changes in the young girl, even if they didn't have to do with her ever-growing power. The most glaring of all was the fact that she was no longer suctioned to Sasuke's side and now stood on her own.

She also changed her attire, now wearing a full black body suit, having given into Lee's arguments for the use of it. However, she added on a red vest similar to Kakashi's flak jacket. It was designed to help protect against blunt force trauma and minor weapons such as shuriken. The vest was a gift from Sarutobi upon receiving access to vault 4.

Sakura treasured the thing, repairing it carefully after it took any training damage. She also wore a hip holster and a weapons holster strapped to her thigh as well as bandages on her ankles and wrists to support them and protect against chaffing from the weights she also wore. Her usual blue sandals adorned her feet.

This morning, Sakura yawned, her internal clock now synchronized to wake up at dawn. She rolled out of bed, changed into her shinobi attire, and grabbed some food as she decided to walk the empty streets towards the training grounds instead of taking to the rooftops. Lee was out on a mission, so she could take her time.

_"Hard to believe it's only been a week or so."_

_"I told you, you could do it. Your body is still weak, but you're getting there."_

Sakura chuckled, ignoring the strange look that a chunnin gave her as she walked by.

_"Thanks. What's the ninjutsu for today? Fire?"_

_"I thought it was a weapons day."_

_"Ah right. I wonder if that Tenten girl on Lee's team wouldn't mind helping us. I think they get back later today."_

_"No harm in asking," _agreed Inner Sakura.

Following a lull in conversation, Sakura reverted to her mediation trance as she walked, her chakra pathways blazing with activity as she circulated and expanded the sizeable amount of chakra she now possessed.

Arriving at the grounds, Sakura stretched and fell into her basic taijustsu stances, running through them quickly, and then moving into the low-chunin level techniques that Lee had been teaching her lately.

Beads of sweat began to run down her face as she exerted herself, focusing on speed, precision, and technique. Finishing, she paused, took a breath and then summoned some clones to fight her in lieu of Lee.

Needless to say, she took care of them easily. She frowned, disappointed that they weren't anywhere as challenging as Lee was. She summoned up several more, hoping to overwhelm herself with numbers instead.

Moving fluidly and easily from stance to stance, she quickly and easily destroyed the clones, sighing in frustration at the lack of challenge and wishing she had someone to spar with. Closing her eyes, she envisioned Lee, falling into his stance as her mind calculated the best move to use against her, mixed in with what Lee would likely use, creating a fully fleshed opponent in her head.

Moving as if she was fighting the character she was seeing, she smiled, finally feeling the joy of fighting a hard opponent. Many shinobi used a method similar to this to train, but most usually just had to execute a genjutsu that tapped into their powerful subconscious to project their opponents believably. Sakura was able to do it consciously.

She trained hard until 10am, perfecting her current taijutsu abilities for several hours as Inner Sakura cheered her on mentally, kicking her back up when she felt tired and discouraged, and giving her pointers when she struggled.

Sakura came to a halt after completing a complicated sequence of taijutsu, breathing heavily, sweat soaking her body suit as she steamed in the cool morning air. She slowly stood up straight, stretching out, hearing her body pop in several places as she sighed in relief. She walked deeper into the woods, entering a small clearing with a small lake, the water coming to Sakura's hips when she stood in the middle.

She removed everything but her body suit, jumping in and squealing when she hit the cool water. She hated to admit it, but Lee had been right. The body suit did wick sweat away quickly, was quite porous, flexible, and dried quickly. The only problem was when the sweat evaporated; she would still smell of salt and body odour. Her solution to this was to jump into the lake, rinse all the sweat away and let the water evaporate naturally. She didn't mind it, the cold water helped to give her an extra burst of energy after taijutsu training.

Climbing out of the lake, she wrung out her hair, shaking off excess water, much like a dog would do and proceeded to walk towards Team 7's training ground for her daily meditation and chakra training.

Arriving at the bridge, she was surprised to see Sasuke there, looking as if he was waiting for her. The old her probably would have fainted at this point, but she just raised an eyebrow calling out, "Hey Sasuke. Up a bit early aren't you?"

He turned to face her as she approached, "Hn. No earlier than you," he said, looking at her soaked body appraisingly.

Sakura shrugged, "True. But this is normal for me," she replied. Sasuke glanced away, huffing in irritation as he struggled to say what he obviously came to talk to her about. She waited patiently.

_"Well this is unusual," _Inner Sakura remarked.

_"Hm. Indeed. I wonder what he wants?"_

_"Probably wants to know what changed and how you're getting so good. He pays more attention to you and Naruto than Kakashi-sensei does. Views you guys as competition."_

Sakura reflected on this, thinking back to what she knew of Sasuke. She recalled that he hated to be bested in anything, which is why he found Naruto so irritating, because Naruto had great potential as well.

_"Seeing you progress so far from being the weakest link is probably threatening his sense of security and what he knows. Very arrogant that way. If he lost some of that he may be a halfway decent person."_

_"Oh hush you, he's a good person inside. He nearly died for Naruto back in the Land of Waves." _

_"True, true," _replied her inner persona.

Sakura sighed after a long period of silence, "Look Sasuke, you obviously came here to talk to me about something, so please, just do it. I have training I need to get to," she said, not vindictively, but firmly.

Sasuke looked back up, meeting her emerald green orbs.

"What happened to you Sakura?"

"I already told you, I just realized that I need to take training serious-"

"Don't lie to me Sakura." He said, glaring at her.

She frowned, "I'm not. I did just have a moment where I realized that I needed to train to become a good shinobi. Whatever spurred that on is irrelevant."

"How did you get…what are you…" he trailed off, looking frustrated.

"How did I improve so quickly?" she asked. At his nod she frowned, thinking. "To be perfectly honest, I really don't know. When I decided to train, things just began to click and I realized that I could train in a way that was specific to me, making it easier for me to progress without the constant trial and error stoppages. I'm still weak but I also know what things I struggle with and what things I can spend less time on. That helps too."

Sasuke appeared to be thinking it over. He frowned, unsatisfied.

"Sasuke…"

He looked up at her.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but maybe if you focused on your own training instead of concerning yourself with mine or Naruto's, you'd be better off, " she remarked, walking easily onto the surface of the water, sitting into her meditating position and entering her trance, missing Sasuke's contemplative look.

She sensed him walk to the training ground, likely to practice some jutsus as he thought about what she said.

_"Did I over step my boundaries?"_

_"No, he needed to hear that," _Inner Sakura reassured.

Letting out a groan as she sensed a familiar chakra on the edge of her large aura, she pouted.

_"The world is conspiring to delay our chakra training today," _she complained.

_"Hey whenever he comes, you always get medical ninjutsu practice. After all, he does get injured a lot." _Inner Sakura remarked.

Sakura opened her eyes, standing and climbing onto the bridge, ignoring Sasuke's questioning look as she awaited her visitor, closing her eyes.

"Hey Kiba."

"Dammit Sakura! Can't you ever let me sneak up on you?" the wild looking boy pouted.

She turned to face him, "What, just so you can scare the living daylights out of me with your gruesome injuries? What happened this time? Got hit with an exploding kunai? Experimenting with a fire jutsu?" she questioned, eyeing his singed side, which was bleeding slightly from a gash.

He grinned, despite his pain, "The first one…" he said, sheepishly.

Sakura rolled her eyes, beckoning him over as her palms glowed green. As she began to heal him, she recalled the first time she and Kiba had started to form a friendship.

_It was a particularly nasty day in Konoha. A storm had hit as Sakura was in the midst of her ninjutsu training. Eventually it got to the point where Sakura couldn't even see due to the sheer amount of rain and wind battering her. Deciding to call it quits and get an early start on her scrolls, she deciding to head home._

_Given that she couldn't see a thing, she figured it would be better to take the slow route and just walk instead of ending up a pancake on a tree she didn't see. She began to trudge through the storm, walking for about 20 minutes, her speed greatly diminished by the raging winds._

_She ducked into a small alcove the large overgrowth provided, finding that it was damp, but not soaked, and decided to take a break here to see if the storm would let up for long enough that she could dash home. Sighing at her misfortune, she started to back up into the alcove, seeking dry ground when her foot hit something soft and cold._

_With a feeling of foreboding she turned and cried, "Akamaru!" She knelt beside the unconscious ninken and placed her ear to his chest, hearing a strong heartbeat. She sighed in relief, "okay, so just unconscious. That's good, because I'm not a vet," she thought._

_"Kiba!" she thought, her worry back. "Akamaru would have never left Kiba, though in this storm I'm not surprised. If Akamaru is unconscious, what could be wrong with Kiba?" she panicked. Taking a deep breath and hearing Inner Sakura's reassurances, she took stock and tried to make an informed decision._

_"The storm hasn't let up, and Akamaru's still unconscious. I need him to lead me to Kiba anyways. So my only hope is to pray that by the time Akamaru wakes up, the storm has let up enough to travel."_

_With that, she gathers the small ninken pup up, sliding him inside her jacket to help keep him warm as she stroked his head, thinking, "Please be okay, Kiba."_

_Eventually when the very confused pup woke up and Sakura explained what she knew, the storm had let up a bit, allowing Sakura to follow Akamaru to where Kiba was._

_She gasped upon seeing his battered body. He was lying in a tiny cave, looking as if he dragged himself there as shelter from the storm. Observing his injuries, Sakura didn't know how he could have, but that was irrelevant. He had multiple lacerations, some cuts so deep she saw bone upon further inspection. 3 broken bones and his rib was fractured, poking dangerously into his lung. He could be drowning in his own blood right now._

_He had wrapped some of the deeper cuts, which helped in terms of blood loss, but she had her work cut out for her. For the next 3 hours, Sakura worked tirelessly, sealing cuts, re-aligning bones, encouraging bone growth, and promoting an increase in red blood cells to make up for the loss blood._

_Luckily his rib didn't cut into his lung; otherwise she wasn't sure she would have been able to save him. Both of them were dangerously low on chakra by the end of it, Sakura having just finished training and Kiba having done kami knows what._

_Smilling in relief, her world started to spin and she saw no more, collapsing on the hard rock floor._

_The first thing she saw when she woke up was Kiba's angry, but thankful face. He immediately started berating her for being so careless, but shut up with one look from her. He blushed, mumbling a small thank you, but absolutely refused to tell her what had happened. She didn't think it really mattered._

_From that point on, anytime Kiba was injured, he would immediately seek her out first, only going to the hospital if she was unable to heal him for one reason or another._

Sakura smiled, remembering the memory as she thought affectionately, _"Stubborn jerk."_

She ran her glowing palms one last time over his wounded side before taking her hand off and smacking him in the back of the head, rolling his eyes at his exaggerated cry of pain.

"What did I tell you about trying to learn how to use those explosive tags without proper supervision?" She scolded, inwardly hiding her amusement at the fact that he looked like a puppy being punished.

He frowned, "Not to do it…"

"So why did you do it?"

"I thought I could get it this time, alright?" he exclaimed. Seeing her growing ire he grinned and looked at his imaginary watch, "Oh look at the time! Gotta run! Thanks Sakura-chan!" he yelled, running away as her eye twitched.

She sighed, shaking her head, looking at the placement of the sun and deciding that it wasn't worthwhile to continue training until their missions for the day. Walking over to a large tree nearby where Sasuke was training, having ignored her and Kiba long ago, she lied down underneath it, taking a quick nap as she awaited the arrival of their ever-late sensei.

**Another chapter for you lovelies! Please review! It inspires me to post and honestly is so helpful considering this is my first time writing. :P Oh, also I mentioned it in the first AN, but if you have any ideas for pairings (I've introduced Lee, Kiba, Sasuke, Naruto as secondary characters and am definitely planning on having Neji, Shika, Gaara later on.) I'm willing to incorporate pretty much anyone as long as it flowed into the story well. Thanks!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

**Hi guys! I literally wrote this all in one go after reading your guys' reviews. Thank you so so much! They inspired me so much! I mean, pfft, who needs coffee and energy drinks when you have awesome reviewers?**

**First of all, to answer a couple of questions. The Uchiha massacre did happen in this story, apologies. I wasn't exactly clear when mentioning that. As for pairings, thanks for your suggestions! I'm definitely keeping them in mind for when I do introduce Sakura's love interest. For now though, I really want to build up the plot and Sakura's character, as well as her relationships with other characters before I throw that in. Ill post a poll of options when we get there.**

**Without further adieu, chapter three of A Brilliant Mind! Please R & R!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto blah blah blah.**

_"Thoughts"_

"Speaking"

As the sun hit its highest point of the day, Sakura awoke feeling two new chakra sources approach. She smiled as she yawned and stretched under the tree, sitting up as she waved at the approaching figures.

"Hi Lee-kun! Hey Naruto-kun!" she called, rising to her feet as she watched the boys pick up their pace to greet her.

"Hi Saku-chan! Lee was just telling me about how you guys have been training! That's so cool Sakura-chan!" Naruto replied enthusiastically, missing how Sasuke perked up as he heard about her training.

Sasuke glanced over the unknown boy that was gazing at Sakura with clear adulation in his eyes as he scoffed, trying to ignore the small burning in his gut.

_"Doesn't look that strong to me." _Sasuke thought haughtily, turning away and resuming his training as Lee rushed over to grasp Sakura's hands in his own, even as she rolled her eyes and Naruto steamed.

"Sakura-san! It is lovely to see you! I just came by to check that your training today went well?" He inquired, smiling brightly even as she pulled her hands out of his grasp.

"It was alright, thanks Lee-kun. It was unfortunate that I didn't have my sparring partner though." She said, frowning slightly.

"That is indeed unfortunate news! Would you care to spar now?" he queried, grinning back at her as she began to smile. They shared a glance as they both leapt apart, startling Naruto and catching Sasuke's interest as he paused in his training in order to watch his teammate fight.

The taijutsu users clashed repeatedly, engaging in a flurry of activity as they kicked, blocked, punched and generally tried their best to incapacitate their opponent without the use of chakra.

Lee would swing a roundhouse kick to her temple, she would duck, grabbing his leg as it swung over her, giving a sharp pull to knock him off balance as she rose up with a hard uppercut, which he blocked, grabbing her arm and flipping her over him.

She landed on her feet, sliding back a couple of feet, ducking and rolling to the side as Lee wasted no time, turning and racing after her.

His knee nicked her side as she rolled onto her back, putting her legs up to flip Lee over her as she jumped to her feet, blocking Lee's rapid punches to her body and face, before he sent a kick through her defenses, tossing her against a tree. She had no time to groan though as he was on top of her again, forcing her to stand and go on the offensive to avoid being thrown around like a rag doll.

As per usual, during the fight Sakura was greatly outclassed, but she managed to hold her own for quite a while, much better than when she first started at least, even landing a couple hits on Lee, of which she was quite proud of. These spars always served to humble Sakura to the difference in skill that still existed between her and her peer.

The two shinobi leapt away from each other, landing on separate sides of the training ground, both breathing heavily, though one more so than the other. They regarded each other before coming to an unspoken truce, standing up and grinning at each other.

"Very good Sakura-san! You have improved greatly from the first day we trained! That roundhouse kick was beautifully executed!" Lee gushed, making her smile as she approached Lee, her hands glowing green.

"Thank you Lee, you are difficult to hit, as per usual." She chuckled, raising a hand to his face and healing his split lip and bruised cheek.

She then ran her hands over her own body, healing her own various injuries as she suddenly became aware of Naruto, Sasuke, and a newly arrived Kakashi watching her, a look of surprise in their eyes.

She blushed, "ahah, hey guys. Sorry to keep you waiting."

"Mah, Saskura-chan, that was very impressive…" Kakashi remarked.

_"No thanks to you!" _Inner Sakura huffed, _"Maybe now he'll finally see that we're not useless and train us."_

_"Unlikely," _Sakura replied.

"Thank you, Kakashi-sensei." She replied curtly, Inner Sakura's words opening up the old wound.

She turned to Lee, smiling gently, "I think I have to go now Lee, thanks for the spar."

"You are most welcome loveliest Sakura-san! I will try to find someone that can spar for you in my absence next time!" he replied, giving a thumbs up as he dashed off, likely to resume his own training.

Sakura turned back to her teammates, raising an eyebrow as she stood, her hands on her hips as she turned to regard her sensei.

"So, Kakashi-sensei, what's the plan for today?" she asked, effectively diverting the attention off her and onto her teacher.

"Right, well we have some missions to do today, so lets head out." The older man said, leading his young team of genin to the hokage tower for another day of grueling, backbreaking, D-ranked missions despite their groans and protests.

After the day was completed, Kakashi herded his tired, annoyed, and dirty team back to the bridge where he grinned at them, his eye creasing happily.

"Good work today guys!" he said, "You can take the rest of the day off now, while I go turn in these mission reports," disappearing in a flash of green leaves.

Naruto turned to Sakura, "Sakura! Would you like to get some ramen with me?" he asked, his bright blue eyes pleading silently. Unable to resist the puppy dog eyes, Sakura sighed and smiled softly, nodding. Naruto turned to Sasuke who shook his head in the negative. Naruto shrugged and tugged Sakura in the direction of Ichiraku's, smiling brightly.

After the pair had finished, Sakura was in the middle of asking whether Naruto wanted to come training with her when they were interrupted by a small group of academy students. Sakura recognized the Hokage's grandson, Konohamaru as he approached Naruto.

Sakura tuned out for a second as a feeling of unease washed over her. She looked around subtly, feeling eyes one her. Her eyes flickered as she caught a glimpse of crimson, furrowing her brows in confusion. She glanced over at Konohamaru and Naruto, who seemed to be engaged in an argument, leading to a small chase.

Her eyes widened as she saw an older boy with strange face paint teleport directly in front of the young boy, causing Konohamaru to crash into him before the young boy had a chance to react. He growled, picking Konohamaru up by the back of his shirt as a girl who had teleported beside him frowned.

"You little shit!" he snarled.

"Don't Kankuro, we'll get in trouble." She said, looking mostly unconcerned.

"Chill Temari, I'm just going to have some fun and teach this kid a lesson. Gaara's not around anyways." He replied, balling his hand into a fist.

"Che, fine, but I'm not held accountable for your actions."

"Hey! Let him go!" cried Naruto.

The other boy glared at Naruto and scoffed, "Huh, Konoha's genin are weak." He perked up as Sakura stepped in front of Naruto, calling out, "Hey girl, why don't you ditch him and chill with me? I'm a way better shinobi than he is." He smirked, beckoning her arrogantly even as her eye started to twitch.

"I highly doubt that. Now if you would please release our friend that would be great." She said flatly, crossing her arms over her chest as he frowned at her.

"Why? He's just a weak kid. I'll teach him a lesson then that kid beside you." Kankuro said, raising his fist.

Sakura frowned and as his fist started to descend she disappeared from everyone's sight. Konohamaru opened his eyes to see Sakura gripping the man's large fist in her own small hand, glaring at Kankuro as she grabbed him by the back of his t-shirt before he fell, setting him down carefully. He scurried back to his friends as Sakura tightened her hand, Temari tensing, until as she felt a cold metal being pressed to her neck. She glanced behind her to see a clone of Sakura with a cold look in her eyes.

_"When did she…" _Temari wondered, looking over at the small pink-haired kunochi.

"You know, picking on kids weaker than you isn't nice." Sakura said.

_"CHA! Yeah! Go Sakura!" _Inner Sakura yelled, making her sweat drop inwardly.

Kankuro winced as she gripped his fist. He glared at her, "You bitch!" aiming another punch at her face, to which she caught with the other hand. She twisted his arms, kneeing him in the gut and kicking him to the ground.

When he didn't struggle and just glared at her, she released him, turning her back to walk back to her friends. Kankuro stood and glared, pulling out a kunai. He raised his arm to throw it when a small pebble flew and hit him in the hand, making him yelp. Everyone but Sakura looked up to see where the rock came from.

_"Great. More brats." _Kankuro frowned.

_"Thanks Sasuke…" _Sakura thought, turning back around to look past Sasuke at another spot on the branch as she sensed a new, cloaked chakra.

Sasuke spoke, glaring at the unknown shinobi, "Leave. You aren't wanted here," as he crushed a pebble in his fist.

As the shinobi on the ground except for Sakura tensed for a fight, a low voice spoke, causing Sasuke's eyes to dart to the source of the voice.

"Kankuro, you are a disgrace to our village. Why do you think we came to Konoha?" said a young redheaded boy as he hung upside down on the branch behind Sasuke.

As the shinobi on the ground pleaded with the boy, making up excuses, Sasuke thought, _"How did he get behind me so easily?"_ Sasuke frowned, cursing his weakness and vowing to not let it happen again. Turning back to the conversation, he heard the boy tell Kankuro to shut up before teleporting to the ground. Sasuke quickly followed, appearing beside Sakura.

"I apologize for the inconvenience that my teammates have caused you." he said politely, turning away. Sakura's voice stopped him.

"Wait. Are you here for the chunnin exams?" she asked having known about the exams long ago due to her constant interaction with the Hokage, much to the confusion of Naruto and Sasuke.

The boy turned, nodding as he pulled out their passports. He started to turn away once more until Sasuke said, "What's your name?" ignoring Temari's excited expression; he looked at the boy impassively. The red headed boy turned, "I am Gaara of the Sand. I am also interested to know your name, as well as the girl's."

"Sasuke Uchiha."

"Sakura Haruno."

"What about me? Do you want to know my name?" cried Naruto, sulking when the boy ignored him. Sakura patted his arm, "Don't worry Naruto, I know you're strong. We'll show him that." She said, smiling as he perked up.

_"Sakura Haruno and Sasuke Uchiha…They are strong," _thought Gaara as he walked off.

Sakura sighed as she and her team waited for their sensei to show up with "important news" as the young academy student called it.

Currently, Naruto was sleeping on the bridge, snoring loudly and drool dripping from his mouth. Sakura giggled internally. Strangely, it was a very adorable sight. The same couldn't be said for her other teammate though, who, after the confrontation with the sand-nin, had been sulking as he trained viciously hard.

Pushing off from her place on the bridge she decided it was time to do something. She walked over to him, standing next to him watching his eyes flicker to her and his glare increase tenfold.

"What."

"Would you like to spar?" she asked, unfazed by his attitude.

He paused and stood up, regarding her as she waited.

"Rules?"

"Taijutsu and weapons only? First blood? No sharigan." she suggested, seeing him nod. She smiled and leapt back, crouching in a ready position as she pulled out a kunai, awaiting his move.

Impatient, Sasuke lunged for her, swinging his kunai at her as she dodged his blows gracefully, parrying with her kunai as he attacked. His movements were much more erratic than usual, probably due to whatever had him sulking earlier. He growled, seeing her dodge him, frustrating him more.

Some small part of him still believed that she was weak, that he was better than her. Seeing her handle him now was a harsh slap in the face of reality.

Deeming it time to retaliate and having plenty of time to calculate the best route to handle him, she decided to go on the offense. They traded blows until she slowly began to overpower him, his frustration making him sloppy.

_"This is useless," _Inner Sakura remarked, _"All we are doing is making him more angry."_

_"Hmm, you're right. What do you suggest?"_

_"Stop the fight and calm him down. He's not fighting you at 100% anyways."_

Frowning, she leapt away and stood up, putting away her kunai.

"What. Are. You. Doing." He all but hissed.

"Stopping this fight. I will not fight you unless you come at me with your all. You are sloppy, your anger making you lose control. Calm down and fight me for real," she said, crossing her arms as she glared at him.

There was a moment of silence as he nodded, entering his battle mindset. He crouched in a ready position as she smiled, a smirk being returned as she took off her forehead protector, placing it on her forehead and tying it. This helped her to ground herself and to enter her own battle mode.

The two young genin regarded each other and took off, exchanging blows in a frenzy of defense, offense, defense, and offense. Although Sasuke was no match for Lee, he was well matched for her and engaged her in a fight that had her heart racing and her grinning like Naruto at the challenge.

For each swipe of a kunai, there was an answering parry. For each leg sweep, there was a jump and a roundhouse kick. They panted, meeting each other with a clang as they blocked each other's kunai strike with their own. Grunting as sweat rolled down their faces and bodies, they pushed against each other in a battle of strength.

Unfortunately for Sakura, despite her recent training, she was still not as strong as Sasuke, especially considering she was still wearing her weights. She decided to keep them on for this match as if she had taken them off, Sasuke would have likely demanded the use of his sharigan, which allowed him to still see her movements even if she was faster than him.

Due to this lack of strength, she started to be pushed back and as Sasuke began to smirk she heard Inner Sakura yell.

_"He's off guard! Take his legs out!"_

Without a moments hesitation she swung her leg out, knocking him flat on his back and as her arm rose to protect her face from his kunai, her own kunai swiped at his shoulder. As the dust settled they heard a voice.

"Mah, isn't this interesting?" Kakashi said.

The two genin looked at their position and sprung apart, blushing lightly as their sensei smiled. Sasuke glanced at her and indicated to her arm, where his kunai had nicked her. He looked smugly pleased. She merely smiled in response and pointed at his shoulder whish was also bleeding slightly. He looked startled and then frowned, observing her for a moment before smirking at her.

They then turned to face Kakashi, who was standing over a still knocked out Naruto, likely trying to determine what was the worst way to wake him up. Taking this distraction, Sakura healed her cut as well as all her bruises before beckoning Sasuke over to do the same. He complied, despite rolling his eyes.

When they were both healed, they turned just in time to watch Kakashi nudge Naruto off the bridge and into the cold water of the river.

He awoke with a scream, "AHHHHH COLD COLD COLD!" scrambling out of the river as he sat on the shore, shivering and drenched. Sakura let out a small giggle as the rest of her team members also looked amused, sans one very wet blonde.

After an impromptu drying session, Team 7 finally gathered on the bridge, Naruto still pouting until some papers were thrust out in front of them, effectively distracting him.

"These are applications for the chunnin exams. I've nominated you three to take the test. You don't have to if you don't want to. If you do, bring these applications to hokage tower at three tomorrow. That's all. Ja ne!" waved Kakashi before leaping away.

The kids frowned at their teacher and looked over the applications. Naruto was predictably excited and even Sasuke cracked a smirk. Sakura on the other hand, was feeling slightly more conflicted, still worried about being weak, despite all her progress, her battle with Lee and Sasuke showing that she was nowhere near "strong" yet.

As the sun began to set, the three said their goodbyes, and parted ways, each heading home, each with the chunnin exams on their minds.

_"Are we ready?" _Sakura thought.

**Chapter 4 is done! Thanks so much for reading! Please review; it motivates me to no end!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

**Hey guys! Man, I feel like a chapter pumping machine, but I can't help it! Reading your reviews just makes me want to go write! So thank you so much! I'm floored by all the support I'm receiving. On a side note though, I just realized that I've been spelling chunin wrong the whole story. So thanks to that anonymous reviewer that caught that! Oh and since I don't have anyone to read over my stories before I publish them, I know I'm prone to spelling and grammatical errors so feel free to let me know! Thanks and enjoy! **

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto blah blah blah.**

_"Thoughts"_

"Speaking"

Sakura awoke with a start, sitting up in her bed. It was a couple hours before dawn and she woke, gasping for breath and sweating as she tried to recover from her nightmare.

_"It felt so vivid…but it's not true. Get over it Sakura!" _She berated herself mentally, wiping the sweat off her forehead. She closed her eyes, the dream still clear in her mind.

_Team seven was in a dark forest. She looked around, confused as she saw Naruto and Sasuke standing beside her. All of a sudden, they collapsed beside her, multiple wounds springing forth from their body, blood gushing from them, forming rivulets around her feet. _

_She stepped back in horror as they turned to her, screaming at her, "Your Fault! Why can't you be stronger!" She shook her head in denial, falling to her knees as she watched the blood pool into the general shape of a snake._

_She screamed, clawing at a burning pain on the back of her neck, as she saw all the people who had ever called her weak or ignored her in her life. Her family, her teachers, her classmates, all stared at her as she writhed in pain. With a burst of absolute agony, she passed out and woke up._

Shaking her head free of the dream, she climbed out of bed, too jumpy to go back to sleep and settled for sitting on her floor and meditating for a couple hours. Having finished all her scrolls and being unable to obtain new ones had cut down Sakura's reading time, splitting it with meditation and writing down her own theories.

As per usual, she circulated her chakra, expanding it and contracting it, forcing her chakra coils to grow through prolonged training, allowing her to store and utilize more chakra easier. She could kill hours doing this. It gave her a sense of calmness, to be able to completely control something like she was able to with her chakra.

She continued her meditation until she felt the first rays of sun on her face, at which point, she got up and dressed, leaving through the window to head to her morning taijutsu training with Lee.

* * *

She groaned, walking to hokage tower to meet up with her teammates. She had spent a few extra hours with Lee today, upon his insistence, and was sorely regretting her decision, her muscles protesting as she sat down at the steps of hokage tower. Her hands glowed green with healing chakra was she relieved the tension in her muscles, repairing the damage, sighing in relief as the pain dissipated.

She didn't know how, but Lee had seemed to sense her anxiety and nervousness and promptly beat her so bad that she didn't have time to think anymore about the dream or the exams. She had to stay focused or risk serious injury by Lee's hand. At the time, she cursed him left, right and center, but in the end, she was thankful for the distraction.

Sakura sighed, crossing her legs on the steps of hokage tower as she fell into her meditative state, waiting for her teammates. This also allowed her to speed up the recovery of her chakra that she had expended healing her various injuries.

_"Well, this is it. It's time to put our skills to the test," _Inner Sakura said.

_"Ah, hello Inner, haven't heard from you in a while."_

_"Yes, well, you haven't needed me to say anything for a while now. How do you feel?"_

"Honestly? I'm terrified. Lee-kun is in this exam too and he's so much better than I am. And that's just Lee. There are shinobi from all over coming to compete. I don't know how I'm going to get through it."

"You seem to forget Sakura, that you are strong in your own right. Nobody else has the mastery over chakra that you do. And without your weights, you cream Sasuke speed-wise. Yes, you have weaknesses, but you are not weak."

_"…Thanks, Inner. I needed that." _Sakura thought, opening her eyes as she felt her boys approaching.

Naruto called a greeting loudly, as per usual, causing her to turn to him and smile, her confidence now somewhat returned. She stood up and addressed them, "Ready to go boys?" getting two nods in response.

She turned, Naruto and Sasuke flanking her as they entered hokage tower, one determined team.

As they turned a corner, heading to their designated room, they came across a large crowd. Pushing their way through Sakura saw Lee being thrown to the ground standing shakily back up as a girl with two buns pleaded with a group of callous looking shinobi. Sakura narrowed her eyes, suspicious as she saw Lee pretending to be weak. Just this morning he had beat her into the ground, so she was unimpressed. She frowned, detecting a genjutsu, and then tuned into the conversation.

"If you can't fight us, you shouldn't be in the exams. These are tough exams. We're just weeding out the weaker ones, what's wrong with that?" the shinobi said arrogantly.

"That may be true, but if you would let us by, we're trying to get to room 301." Sasuke said, much to the shinobi's surprise.

"Heh, what are you talking about kid? This is room 301, cant you see?" the shinobi replied.

"Please, Sakura, you must have noticed right?"

Sakura looked up from her pondering and smiled, "Of course, this is just room 201."

"Pfft, so all you can do is see-"

"Also, why is a chunin trying to weed out genin? Aren't you only supposed to moderate the exams?" Sakura asked, cutting him off, much to everyone's surprise.

He smirked, releasing the genjutsus, "Not bad… let's see how you handle this," she said, flashing in front of Sasuke who smirked, raising his leg to meet the chunin's kick.

***BAM***

Sasuke looked to see his leg being held in Lee's hand and the chunin's leg held in Sakura's. Sakura glared at the two, "It wouldn't do to start a fight here Sasuke. Especially because this guy, isn't even supposed to be here," she said, shooting daggers at the chunin who huffed and turned away. Sakura grabbed Naruto and Sasuke, heading to the doors to the next flight of stairs when they were halted by a voice.

A boy with pearl-white eyes called out from beside Lee, "What are your names?" referring to Team 7.

Sasuke glanced at him, "It's rude to ask for someone else's name without introducing yourself."

The boy nodded, "Neji Hyuga."

Naruto grinned, "I'm Naruto Uzumaki!"

"Sasuke Uchiha."

"Sakura Haruno."

The boy looked over all of them, before turning and walking away. Team 7 shrugged and continued walking to the registration desk where they were startled to see Kakashi, who eye-smiled at them.

"Oh good, you all came. I didn't want to put pressure on you, but if one of you hadn't shown up, none of you would be able to enter the exams. As you take it as a team, for the most part. Now, go ahead in and good luck." He said, stepping aside for them.

They all grinned, smiled, or smirked as they entered the waiting room, seeing a crowd of genin also there. They proceeded to make their way to the other rookies until a loud scream caught them off guard.

"SASUKE-KUN! I MISSED YOU!"

The next thing any of them knew, Ino was latched onto Sasuke, making him glare at her. Sakura giggled, before turning away to greet the other rookies, missing Sasuke and Ino's incredulous gaze.

"Hello, Shika, Choji, Hinata, Kiba, Akamaru, Shino. It's been a while," Sakura said. She felt Shikamaru's lazy gaze on her as the rest of the rookies took in her changed demeanor. She no longer radiated the aura of a scared fan girl, but one of a proud kunochi. She felt herself being picked up by Kiba's hug as she giggled, patting her close friend on the head as she was put down.

The rookie 9 all began to converse loudly, now re-joined by Ino and Sasuke, who had managed to pry Ino's arms off his neck, and promptly shoved her over to her teammates.

"You guys should be quieter," an older boy said, approaching the group. For some reason, at his appearance, alarm bells begin ringing in her head as Inner Sakura hissed at him. She listened carefully at what he was saying, searching for anything out of place.

"You rookies are so cute. Which is why I want to help you. I have info on almost every single shinobi here. Just name it." Kabuto said, pulling out a deck of blank cards.

Sasuke stepped forward, "Neji Hyuga and Gaara of the sand."

Kabuto pouted, "That's no fun, you already know their names. Oh well."

He passed his hands over the deck of card, pulling out two previously blank ones, now filled with information.

"Woah how did you do that?" Naruto asked.

As Kabuto was about to reply, Sakura cut him off.

"The information in the cards is laced with his own chakra Naruto. That way, they only respond and show their information when he chooses to reveal them by pumping his chakra into them. Correct?" Sakura said, addressing Kabuto, seeing him nod in astonishment.

"Right, anyways, here's the info you wanted," he said, passing the cards to Sasuke. As the group began a conversation, Sakura tensed, feeling familiar eyes on her again. Looking over, she noticed the sand-nin, Gaara, from earlier. She lifted a brow as she caught his eye. He stared back impassively. Shrugging inwardly, she turned away; just in time to see Kabuto block a sound-nin's attack and smirk.

She narrowed her eyes, looking up at the nin as Kabuto fell to his knees, throwing up, blood dripping out of his left ear.

_"What happened?" I saw him block the hit." _Sakura thought.

_"You don't always need to touch someone to land a hit on them," _replied Inner Sakura.

Sakura looked over the shinobi, taking in his attire as Naruto argued with him. She froze seeing his headband, _"The village hidden in the sound…sound…that must be it! Sound waves!" _

Stepping beside Naruto who was about to blow she casually remarked, "That's a clever trick, using sound waves to attack someone. I mean, I guess you could call it clever, but I call it cowardly."

She glared at the sound-nin, Inner Sakura boosting her courage, as he and his team tensed, "How did you know?" he asked.

She scoffed and fingered her kunai holster, "Please. I'm not stupid." She knew she couldn't actually take him on, she had no way of defending herself against his sound waves, but she still stood strong, standing up for Kabuto, despite the weird feeling she got from him.

_"I'll have to strategize a defense, incase I have to fight him later."_ She thought idly, noticing Gaara, Neji, Lee, and the rest of the rookies watch her with interest as they too tensed, but for various reasons.

For Gaara, it was the thought of potential blood. For Neji, it was to be ready to grab Lee incase he tried to intervene, although he too watched the reckless kunochi with interest. And for the rest of the rookies and Lee, it was to prepare to defend Sakura, should the need arise.

The sound-nin glared at her and prepared to attack when a poof of smoke appeared in the centre of the room.

"All right! What's going on here!" a large man bellowed, "There is to be no fighting until you are told to do so! Am I understood!"

Sakura put her arms by her side, the other nin eventually doing the same, "Sorry, we got a little excited."

The man smirked.

"Alright listen up! My name is Ibiki Morino. I'll be your proctor for the first portion of the exams."

* * *

Sakura sat in her designated seat, glancing around her subtly.

_"Hmm…what is this? We're in a classroom, which must mean a written exam, but why? Surely they don't care how much we know about shinobi history…" _She pondered, interrupted by Ibiki.

"Alright, now as some of you may have guessed, the first portion is a written exam." He paused as the genin expressed their outrage loudly, "Shut up! Do not question me! Now listen up!" he yelled harshly, some of the weaker genin flinching.

He explained the exam as well as the rules, the chunnin passing out the papers as they began. Sakura frowned, reading the questions.

_"What's with these questions? A normal genin would never be able to get any of these."_ She thought, even as she wrote rapidly, quickly finishing her paper within 20 minutes. She placed her pencil down to ponder the strange exam some more.

_"Hmm. They put unanswerable questions and only kick us out after we've been caught five times. Why not the first time? It almost like they want us to cheat and not get caught…that's it. It's an information-gathering test. Oh Sasuke, Naruto, please figure this out." _She thought, glancing over at the trembling boy and his annoyed teammate.

* * *

_"Oh crap Oh crap Oh crap, I don't know any of these! If I fail, we all fail! Hinata said I could copy off her, but…no, if I get caught it'll be even worse I'm sure. My only hope is that final question." _Naruto thought, right as Ibiki blew a whistle, signaling the end of the allotted time.

"Alright! It's time for the final question. But first, you must choose whether to stay any answer it or quit here. If you quit now, you can take the exams again next year. But! If you stay and get the question wrong, you can never advance past a genin." He said, multiple students yelling in outrage.

"Silence! These are the rules! Now make your decision!" he yelled.

Slowly, one by one, hands started to rise, teams leaving as they cracked under the pressure. Sakura's eyes widened as she watched Naruto's hand begin to rise. She had just opened her mouth to stop him when his palm slammed on the table and he stood up.

"Are you joking! I'm not going to give up, not now, not ever! Even if I have to stay a genin my whole life, I'll still become hokage!" he yelled, determination shining in his eyes.

With this outburst, the remaining teams began to gain confidence and stared at Ibiki, determined. He smirked inwardly, _"Interesting. He seemed to have given the others some backbone. Dragging this out wont change anything."_

"Congratulations! You all pass!"

At the rooms shocked silence, Ibiki began to explain the true reason of this test as Sakura smiled softly at Naruto, listening to Ibiki, but not deeply.

_"Oh Naruto. You have no idea how I envy your ability to just go for it. I wish I was as fearless as you."_

Sakura sat up as Ibiki finished his speech, feeling a chakra signal approaching quickly. She had little time to react, only managing to pull out a kunai as a woman in fishnets and a jacket crashed through the window.

"Alright listen up maggots! My name is Anko Mitarashi and I'll be your proctor for the next exam!

**Awe yee, Chappie 5 est fini. Thanks for reading and don't forget to review! It helps get my creative juices flowing. J**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hi guys! Been away for a few days, sorry about that. It'll probably be a few days before I get the chance to update again, what with school and all. So apologies in advance. Secondly thank you so much for all your love and support, it's the best thing ever! **

**Oh, and to reply to Kason-sama's review about the transitions being jarring and including page breaks, thanks! Your review confused me a bit though as when I write, I do include page breaks. They show up in my word doc as well as my doc manager, but apparently when I save, they don't show up anymore, which means after I upload a doc to my manager, I have to go back in and add the breaks in. Annoying. Didn't notice that until now. Anyways, I've changed that, so hopefully they show up now. Cross my fingers. I'll probably eventually go back and add them back in for the previous chapters. Btws, if anyone knows why that happens, lemme know, cause its kinda tedious to go back and re-add them in :P**

**Enjoy the chapter!**

**Chapter 6**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto blah blah blah.**

_"Thoughts"_

"Speaking"

After a long trek, the strange woman stopped the group of genin in front of a large gate. An ominous looking forest greeted them as the woman stood atop a large rock. She grinned, bellowing out, "Welcome all, to the Forest of Death! The second exam is one of survival. You will receive one of two scrolls. Half of you will get the heaven scroll, the other half will get the earth scroll." She said, holding both scrolls, "Your job is to get both scrolls and get to the center tower, which is 5 miles in! This means that at least half of you will fail!"

"What!" Naruto cried, "That's not fair!"

Anko turned to the outraged boy, "Suck it up, that's how this test is going to go."

Under his breath, Naruto muttered, "Freaky psycho woman…"

Anko's eye twitched and then she moved. Before anyone could react, she threw a kunai, grazing Naruto's cheek, drawing a small droplet of blood. Sakura's eyes widened and she tensed as Anko reappeared behind Naruto, licking the droplet off his cheek.

"Mmm…you kids are always the first to go. Leaving that delicious blood all over…I love it!" she squealed, sending shivers up the spines of most of the genin. Naruto shook as Sakura subtly pulled out a kunai, preparing to throw it should the woman make another threat to Naruto.

Anko looked up, meeting Sakura's eyes as she raised her brow as if to say, _"Really? You think you can hurt me?"_ Sakura glared, determined to fight, even if she knew she would lose.

"Excuse me, you dropped your kunai." A grass-nin interrupted, holding the kunai in his abnormally long tongue. As Anko turned to thank the nin, Sakura heard Inner Sakura yell.

_"What the hell is up with that tongue? That's freaky."_

"I know right? But at least that guy…girl…whatever, distracted Anko-san and got her away from Naruto."

_"True enough."_

Looking up, Sakura noticed Anko finishing up her explanation, directing the genin to fill out their waivers and head to the tent where they would receive their scrolls. Feeling a tug on her arm, she looked to her left, seeing Naruto urging her forward. She blushed and walked forward. Sakura grabbed her waiver, quickly filling it out. She turned to Naruto.

"Hey Naruto, could you hand in my form? I'm just going to take a moment. I'll be over there." She said, indicating to a small rock. With a grin and a nod, her blonde companion grabbed her papers, rushing over to join his other teammate.

Sakura walked over to the small rock, sitting on the damp grass. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, falling easily into her meditation stance. She circulated her chakra easily as she looked inwardly, trying to find Inner Sakura.

_"Inner?"_

_"What's up?"_

_"I don't know if I can do this."_

_"What do you mean? We've trained hard for this."_

_"I know…I guess I'm just a little scared. I mean, Anko-san said it herself, people die in here. And I don't particularly feel like dying."_

_"Sakura, part of being a shinobi is taking that risk. Over coming that fear, moving despite the risk, that's what makes a shinobi. Of course you'll feel fear, but going on, that's what true courage is."_

_"…wow, I never knew you could be so eloquent."_

_"Way to ruin the moment."_

Sakura grinned, opening her eyes to find Naruto and Sasuke making their way back to her.

"Hey guys. Are we ready?" she asked, getting a nod from Sasuke and a grin from Naruto.

"Yep! We're supposed to go to…Gate 16!"

Sakura nodded, standing up and stretching, "Well, let's go then!" she said, pumping her fist in the air as she jogged off to the gate, Inner Sakura's speech having inspired her. Sasuke raised his eyebrow at her as he followed at a much less energetic pace.

Reaching the gates, the Team stood by, conversing quietly.

Sasuke turned to Sakura, "I think you should hold onto the scroll, Sakura. People wont expect you to have it."

Sakura nodded simply, grabbing the heaven scroll and tucking it in her hip pouch. She turned to the boys, "Alright, lets do this."

* * *

Team 7 moved rapidly, leaping through the forest, tree to tree. They set a fast pace, hoping to find a relatively safe place in the forest where they could rest and strategize how to obtain the earth scroll. Spotting a small clearing with a cave, Sakura called ahead, "Guys! Down here looks like a good spot!"

The boys turned back to her, pausing on their respective branches and watching as she created a simple clone and sent it down to investigate. After some preliminary scouting, the clone looked up at its master and shot her a thumbs-up. Sharing a glance with the boys, they rapidly descended from the trees, landing on the hard rock ground. As Sakura made her way into the small cave, She made a signal for the boys to follow her in.

They settled in, grabbing their rations and resting for a bit. Finishing her last bite, Sakura turned to her teammates.

"We've made some good time, so what's the plan now?" She asked, curious to see what her teammates thoughts on the matter were.

"Well, we definitely need to go find another team to get a scroll from, and from then on, just get to the tower as quick as possible." Sasuke said, looking at her as if she was stupid. For once, Naruto stayed quiet.

Sakura frowned, annoyed at Sasuke's superior attitude. "I disagree Sasuke."

She continued, "More than half the teams will be getting disqualified. I don't think we even need to bother with finding a team. We're not exactly considered a strong team, which means that weak teams, looking for weaker teams, will come to us, hoping to take our scroll and eliminate us easily. If we just travel on our own, a team will no doubt stop us. We don't need to spend the effort looking for a team." Sakura said, a tad snidely as she inwardly laughed at Sasuke's petulant expression.

"Hn. So what now?"

"I think we should rest up here, get as much energy as possible, before heading out. It's going to be a bloodbath during the beginning, we should let that calm down for now. Let the weak teams panic a bit so they can come to us." Sakura suggested.

Sasuke nodded, leaning against a wall as Sakura offered to take first shift. Naruto sat, his eyes wide and mouth open. Stunned, he seemed to come out of a daze as he turned questioningly to her. Sakura smiled at the boy, reassuring him, "Don't worry Naruto, just rest up. We need to be ready incase any teams try to take our scroll eh?" Watching him grin and nod at her energetically, before lying down to rest.

Sakura smiled softly at the boy; now that she had given up her crush on Sasuke, she was afforded an opportunity to truly see people for what they were, without any distractions.

Naruto was a kind soul, who had overcome so much in his short time being alive. He wasn't academically gifted and instead relied on instincts to get him through most situations. That didn't mean he was stupid, as Sakura had seen him judge a person's character in seconds, whereas she had to analyze their body, tone, gestures, etc. to get a feel for who they really were. He was incredibly gifted, chakra-wise and had a positive, determined attitude that made him a great teammate with a lot of potential. He would make a good Hokage.

Sasuke was Naruto's polar opposite. Not constantly fawning over the boy had allowed her to see some of his less than stellar qualities. He was incredibly arrogant, but was also gifted in a wide range of skills. He tended to focus too much on other people than on himself, but he too was just as determined as Naruto. Perhaps it was suffering as children that led them to be that way. Sakura didn't know, but she did know that he would be much better off if he released some of that resentment and hate. He could be a great Sanin if he got over his emotional hurdles.

She frowned. Maybe that was something she needed to bring up to him. She shook her head, thinking, _"No…he's in too deep…only the death of his brother would ever give him closure." _

_"You know, I've always wondered about that case. An ANBU captain, having shown no homicidal tendencies, suddenly snaps and kills his entire clan. Even if there were troubles at home, he had no reason to slaughter the entire clan." _

_"And why leave Sasuke alive? Sasuke was likely special to him, which means that he wasn't able to kill him…it just doesn't add up. That's not the behaviors of a heartless murderer who is capable of killing infants."_

_"Yeah I know it doesn't make sense. But we should think about that another time."_

Sakura nodded, seeing Naruto sit up and indicate for her to have her turn at resting, surprisingly quiet. She smiled softly at him, relaxing back into the cave as she closed her eyes, falling into a light sleep.

* * *

Sakura yawned feeling Sasuke reach out to shake her awake. She opened her eyes, stretching, feeling a satisfying pop as her back cracked. Wordlessly, she and Sasuke stood, Sasuke having woken Naruto up prior to her. Judging by the look on his face and his soaked upper half, Naruto had had another bout with cold water to wake him up. Sakura chuckled as he pouted at her, patting his cheek affectionately.

After the team of genin had packed up, he prepared to set out on their journey when Naruto suddenly made a strange face.

"What's wrong Naruto?" Sakura asked.

"…I've gotta go pee." He said, embarrassed.

Sakura laughed, "alright, well best get it done now, once we get going, we shouldn't stop." She said, a light pink blush tingeing her cheeks. Naruto grinned, dashing off into the bushes. Returning soon after he grinned, "ahhhh that felt so good! So much came out!"

Sakura blushed, before pausing. With no visible reaction, she focused in on Naruto. Like any trained shinobi, Sakura was very observant. Glancing over at Sasuke, she noticed that he had clued in as well. Feeling a spike of fear for her teammate, Sakura took a deep breath, thinking inwardly.

_"We have to play this very carefully…if we get it right, we'll find what happened to Naruto-kun; if he's….if he's….if he's alright. We could also get this guys scroll, potentially. Mustn't tip him off…act normal Sakura…"_

Sakura grinned at the Naruto lookalike, repressing her panic at her teammates disappearance as she walked closer to him, raising an arm as if to sling it over his shoulder, "Naruto, you're such an idiot!" she said.

Hoping that Sasuke wouldn't interfere, she made to sling her arm over his shoulder, but the enemy-nin ducked under it, grinning at her, "Aw Sakura-chan! Stop it!" he said, acting bashful. Sakura stood, rubbing the back of her head as she beckoned for the nin to come closer. She acted playful, hoping that Sasuke had seen what she was trying to do and would help her. Luckily he did.

As the nin approached Sakura, she spread her arms, gesturing for him to come into a hug, as if was totally normal in their team to hug their pretty teammate. Seeing a moment's hesitation, the nin went in, only to find himself blacking out as Sasuke hit his pressure point with a well placed palm strike, knocking him out as he was off guard.

Sakura put down her arms, glaring at the nin. "Thanks," she said, nodding at Sasuke. Sasuke tilted his head in acknowledgement as together, the two bound the enemy nin, waiting for him to wake up so they could get some answers.

* * *

As the enemy nin regained consciousness, he was immediately aware of two things. One, was that his plan definitely did not work out, and two, don't ever fuck with a pink-haired girl. Said pink haired girl was currently standing over him, glaring as she applied pressure with her foot to his precious parts.

He cried out, "Ow ow ow! Stop you bitch!"

She let up for a bit, "Where is Naruto?" she asked, her voice like dead steel. No one but her was aware, but Inner Sakura had pushed to the forefront of her consciousness, deeming it necessary to take over now that one of her precious people was in danger. The change wasn't glaringly obvious, but to those that knew Sakura well, they might have suspected she was under a genjutsu. The real Sakura was still too innocent to pull off the less-savory parts of being a shinobi. Inner Sakura had no qualms with making people scream to get her answers.

This lack of morality quickly became apparent to the enemy nin as he realized that he couldn't stall or hold out to the torture as Sakura had no limit on the amount of torture she was willing to execute. Sasuke stood by, a flicker of concern in his eyes as he watched his female teammate make the nin squirm.

Sakura's glare intensified as the weak nin didn't reply to her question and she resumed stepping on his family jewels, much to his horror. He cried out, "Please! Ow it hurts! Stop! I'll tell you everything!"

Sakura took her foot off, crossing her arms as she stared down impatiently. "Well?" she questioned. The nin nodded over to a clump of bushes nearby that he had covered with a genjutsu that masked a person's chakra signal, explaining why Sakura hadn't been able to sense him. Sakura looked to Sasuke, who was already on his way. Reaching there, he looked up and nodded to Sakura who sighed in relief.

Turning back to the nin, she glared again. "Your team. Where are they?" she demanded. He glared at her, "As if I would tell you that you whore-" Sakura cut him off with a well-placed jab to the temple, effectively knocking him out for the next few hours.

Walking over to Naruto and Sasuke, she saw Sasuke untie a bound Naruto, who immediately leapt up, in a rage. She snagged his collar as he tried to run past, holding him in place. "Hey Naruto, glad to see you're all right." Sakura said softly, indicating that she was back in control. She turned to regard her teammates, "He wouldn't tell me where his teammates are, but that's okay, I just picked up the chakra signals of two relatively weak genin nearby. They're probably his teammates." She said.

Sasuke nodded, "I'll henge as him, you guys stay hidden incase I need backup." Sasuke said, receiving two nods. The team took to the trees, Sakura and Naruto hiding as they watched his progress. Taking this time, Sakura finally freaked out, looking inside her.

_"Inner! Get your arse here!"_

_"Shut up, I'm always here."_

_"What the hell was that?" _Sakura yelled in her head.

_"Nothing, I just made what we were going to do easier."_

_"Easier?! You took over my body! I didn't even know you could do that!"_

_"I normally can't, only when you deem its alright to let me out, I can. We all know I have a stronger stomach than you, so you obviously decided that I was needed to take care of that nin."_

_"Still…"_ Sakura thought, the argument making sense but still feeling the urge to protest the taking over her body thing.

_"Look, I know it feels weird, but it didn't help that you were surprised. Next time, you wont be. Besides, you know that our goals are the same, I just chose a different way to do things."_

_"I suppose…Just give me some warning next time."_

_"Will do."_

With that, Sakura tuned back into reality, watching Sasuke easily handle the weak genin who didn't even notice that Sasuke was not their teammate. Rummaging through their pockets, he smirked, finding the earth scroll. He released the henge and joined his teammates on the branch, pocketing the scroll as he nodded at them.

They travelled at a reasonable pace, not enough to tire them out too quickly, but enough to bring them within half a day's travel of the tower. Deciding to rest incase they came across any hostile teams, they made their way to a large, hollowed out tree, settling inside, must to the pleasure of a long-tongued grass-nin.

**Thanks for reading! Please review!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

**Ugh this chapter gave me so much trouble. I don't even know why. I'm not very happy with it, but hey, what can you do? Thanks for reviewing guys! Makes my day and motivates me to update more often! Anyways, enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto blah blah blah.**

_"Thoughts"_

"Speaking"

Sakura awoke from her peaceful slumber with a jolt as she felt a malicious aura leaking onto the edges of her own. Nudging Sasuke awake, she saw his eyes shoot open. Placing a finger to her lips, she pointed in the direction of the aura, using the sign language they had all learnt at the academy to communicate.

_'Do you feel that?' _she signed.

Sasuke nodded, signing back, _'Powerful nin. Hide or attack?'_

Sakura paused, biting her lip as she rapidly weighed the pros and cons of each option.

_'He can definitely sense us. Pretend we're weak.' _She replied. Sasuke nodded, kicking Naruto awake, covering his mouth as he quietly explained the situation. Sakura took this time to rethink the plan, before deciding that it was indeed the best option.

This nin was powerful, more so than any of them had ever seen before. Which meant that he or she knew that Team 7 was here, so hiding was out of the option. The nin obviously meant to confront them, otherwise they wouldn't have bothered with coming this near to another team. So their only option was a confrontation and the only way they could possibly survive this was if the nin was overconfident and with the element of surprise.

Seeing Naruto now briefed, Sakura nodded to her teammates, cursing her previous self, _"Shit! Why couldn't I have started training earlier!"_

As a group, the group timidly crawled out of their hiding place, brandishing shaking kunai in an attempt to appear weak. They stood; back-to-back, worried expressions on their face as their eyes darted side to side, twitching at every small noise.

"Well well well…I must say…I expected better from the Uchiha heir." Said a low voice, "Why did Itachi-kun bother to leave you alive I wonder?"

Sakura saw Sasuke twitch as she groaned mentally, _"Please Sasuke! Control yourself!"_

All eyes darted to the far edge of the clearing as the grass-nin from earlier sauntered out of the far end of the clearing. "My my, Sasuke-kun…I never thought you would be so weak…" the nin said mockingly, emphasizing the weak.

Sasuke spoke, glaring at the nin, "I'm not weak."

"Oh really? All I see before me is a team of scared, **weak**, little genin…your parents would be ashamed," he taunted.

With a roar of rage, Sasuke lunged for the nin, anger clouding his judgment as Sakura cried, "Sasuke, no!" leaping into action after him, only to be stopped by a large snake that took up a quarter of the large clearing, poofing out of thin air.

Naruto looked torn between his two teammates until he heard Sakura yell with a glare at the snake, "Go Naruto! Help Sasuke! I'll take care of this mongoose food."

Tilting her forehead protector down, Sakura sized up the snake.

_"This thing is big…I'll need a big jutsu to kill it…What are snakes vulnerable to?"_

_"Choose from either a lightning jutsu of a really big fire jutsu." _Inner Sakura advised.

The snake lunged for her, forcing her to leap away, just barely being crushed by the surprisingly quick thing.

_"It's too fast…I'll need to slow it down first…"_

Changing her rapid hand signs, she started on a new series, hoping this would work.

"Ninja art: Devil's Cage!" She yelled, throwing several shuriken tied with razor sharp wire around the general area of the snake. The shuriken wrapped the snake up tightly, cutting into its flesh making it hiss in pain. As the wire cut into the snake, it erupted into flames, scalding the snake, making it thrash in pain.

Sakura wasted no time, moving to her next set of hand seals, hoping to enhance the strength of the fire jutsu and finish the snake off.

Her hands moved rapidly, only just finishing the final seal when the snake broke free of the wires, lunging for her, mouth open wide in a fit of pain-induced rage.

"Fire style: Great Dragon of Fire!" she cried, leaping to the side clumsily as she completed the jutsu. She held back a cry of pain as she felt one of the snake's fangs tear deeply down her leg.

Focusing through the pain, she took a deep breath and blew, a great column of fire erupting from her mouth, twisting to from a dragon. The dragon let loose a roar, swooping down on the snake, impaling it with its talons and biting at its neck. It held the snake still, wrapping its wings and body around the trashing snake until it went limp.

Seeing the snake dead, Sakura gagged at the smell of burning snake flesh and fell to her knees as the adrenaline wore off and she took a look at the gash in her right leg. She bit back a cry of pain as she moved it slightly. She ran her healing chakra over it and helped staunch the bleeding, but it had torn muscle and possibly some ligaments, which was something that she hadn't learnt how to deal with yet.

She turned to look at her teammates, seeing them just managing to hold of the grass-nin. Looking closer, she could see that the nin wasn't even utilizing his full power.d

_"Inner, help me!"_

_"I-I don't know what to do…" _The usually confident inner personality said.

_"J-just make the pain stop…I need to help N-Naruto and Sasuke…I don't care about what happens after."_

_"…Okay. I'll do by best." _Inner said solemnly.

Sighing as she felt the pain slowly abate, Sakura reached for her hip pouch, pulling out a small med-pack. She groaned, wrapping her leg as tightly as possible with some bandages as well as downing a soldier pill.

Feeling herself re-energized, Sakura stood up, putting weight on her leg. Deeming the pain to be bearable, she bent her knees and bounded over to her teammates, interrupting the battle with as Sakura saw a kunai heading for Naruto's unprepared side.

Whipping out her own kunai, she launched it, deflecting the kunai off course. Seeing eyes turn to her, two concerned and one curious, she glared at the grass-nin.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Sakura demanded, blood seeping through the bandages on her leg.

She vaguely heard Naruto's concerned voice, but was too concentrated on the unknown nin to reply back.

Said nin chuckled, "Well well well…Aren't you an interesting one?"

Sakura glared.

"To answer your question…my name is Orochimaru…I want the Uchiha heir." He said, smirking as Sasuke stiffened.

Sakura's eyes widened, "Orochimaru…As in Sarutobi-sama's student?"

He turned surprised eyes to her, "How did you know that girl?"

She glared, ignoring his question, "You're a missing nin, what the hell do you want with Sasuke?"

"Don't brush my question off you insolent girl. Now answer me."

"I know Sarutobi-sama well." She said simply, being privy to knowledge from Sarutobi himself, her studies, as well as what she concluded herself.

"…I see. As for Sasuke…I have great plans for him…I can offer him untold power…" Orochimaru said, maintaining eye contact with the young boy.

There was silence for a moment as the snake sanin's words processed in Sasuke's mind. Sakura could see the temptation in his eyes and knew she had to do something quickly.

She reached down, and tugged off her weights, shaking her limbs slightly.

_"I feel so light…"_ she thought

_"S-Sakura…hurry it up…I can't do this forever…"_ Inner Sakura said.

Focusing, Sakura bent her knees and took off, disappearing in a flash that shocked her teammates and surprised even Orochimaru as he was forced to raise his kunai to deflect hers.

The two clashed, Sakura attacking with viciousness and intensity brought about by the threat to her teammates' health and safety. Utilizing every gram of taijutsu the Lee had instilled into her, she was frustrated to see that it wasn't doing much to the nin.

She leapt away, panting as blood dripped down her leg and she saw her vision waver.

_"No! I have to keep fighting!" _she thought, shaking her head free of the blurriness as she began to sign a jutsu.

"Fire style: Fire bombs!" she cried, large balls of fire flying towards Orochimaru.

She saw him smirk as they collided with him, exploding in a huge fiery explosion that sent Team 7 flying back. With bated breath, they looked to see his charred body.

Naruto's celebration was cut short however, when Orochimaru started to chuckle, his skin peeling from him like that of a snake.

"Hmm…seems I underestimated you, girl. You have some potential…but alas, I can only take one of you this day, and my choice is still the Uchiha." He said nonchalantly, casting a genjutsu on the team that had them freeze in their tracks, fear overwhelming them.

They each saw their worst nightmares, how they would die, amongst other terrors planted by Orochimaru.

Sakura immediately shut her eyes, trembling with exertion as she tried to fight the genjutsu. Usually she would have Inner Sakura's help, but she was occupied with holding off the pain from Sakura's wounds.

_"I-I need to break free of this…but how?"_ Sakura thought, watching as Orochimaru strolled closer to the team, stopping a few meters away. She watched with horror as his neck elongated and he opened his mouth, revealing fangs.

As the head started to descend, aiming for Sasuke's neck, she screamed.

* * *

Orochimaru smirked, before his eyes widened, seeing pink where black should have been. He released his bite, seeing the girl crumple in front of him as he frowned, _"She took the attack…Dammit! I can't execute two curse seals so close to each other. Sasuke-kun…just wait."_

The snake sanin leapt for the trees as Sasuke and Naruto looked with frozen horror at their unconscious female teammate.

As it turned out, seeing her teammate in mortal danger had broken Inner Sakura's concentration, sending a shot of pure pain rushing through Sakura's body, which in turn allowed her to break the genjutsu and throw herself in front of Sasuke.

Said girl was now unconscious on the floor as the genjutsu was lifted from her two teammates. Immediately Naruto began to panic, guilt racing through him.

_"Dammit! Why can't I be stronger? Sakura got hurt…"_ he thought, watching Sasuke pick the limp girl up and head back to the hollow tree they had stayed in earlier. Following him in, Naruto saw Sasuke unwrapping Sakura's bandages slowly.

The pair gasped and turned green at the sight of her leg. Sasuke gagged, seeing the creamy white of bone. He turned panicked eyes to Naruto. Neither of them knew what to do with an injury like this.

_"Sakura…how did you manage to stand, let alone fight like this?"_ Sasuke thought.

The black haired boy grabbed some bandages from his hip pouch, beckoning for Naruto to help him. He re-wrapped the bandages as tightly as possible, pushing the separated flesh back together in hopes of restricting the bleeding.

With that done, the two turned their eyes to the girl's neck. Their eyes widened, seeing three black tomoe occupy the space that Sakura had been bitten.

"W-what is that?" asked Naruto.

Sasuke shook his head, unsure, "We need to get her help, this was obviously too big of an injury for her to heal with her medical ninjutsu."

Naruto nodded in agreement, "But who else knows medical ninjutsu that we can trust?"

The two contemplated the question in silence for a moment, both coming up blank. Then Sasuke spoke, "We have both scrolls. We'll just have to triple time it to the tower and get help there. We don't know what that bite does and how much blood she's already lost. I'll carry her first. Be on guard, we're vulnerable now."

Naruto nodded, serious in the face of his teammates danger. The two gathered what supplies they had left and leapt for the trees, moving as quickly as they could.

* * *

_"Ouch…my neck…it's burning…" _Sakura thought, _"Where am I? Who's carrying me? Inner? Where are you?" _She wondered, her face contorted in an expression of pain.

_"…I'm right here…" _Inner replied, also sounding pained, _"Let's hope whoever is carrying you can get us help soon…Neither of us can take much more of this…I'm already siphoning as much of the pain as I can take…"_

_"I'm sorry, Inner."_

_"Don't apologize. We knew we had to do it."_

Wincing, Sakura slowly opened her eyes, seeing a blur of green as the forest rushed past. Looking around, she saw a familiar person.

"N-Naruto?" she rasped, seeing the boy's shocked eyes. He then stopped on the branch and called Sasuke over.

"Mah…Sakura-chan, you really took a beating…don't worry though! We're going to get you some help! So just relax, we're pretty close to the tower!" he said, his positive attitude making her weakly smile.

She knew she was badly injured. Besides the gouge in her leg and the amount of blood she already lost, she could feel herself getting weaker as the pain from the bite took over.

She looked up, seeing the boys tense as another nin landed close to them.

"Wow, what happened?" Kabuto asked.

"…she was injured…what do you want?" Sasuke asked, unsure of the nin's loyalties.

"Nothing, I just saw you guys. I can try to heal her if you want." Kabuto said, stepping closer, sighing as Sasuke pulled his kunai higher. "Fine, fine, fine, I can understand your hesitance. Here, hold these." He said, tossing a heaven and earth scroll from his pouch to Sasuke.

Sasuke caught them, seeing the subtle message. Sasuke held something valuable of Kabuto's while Kabuto dealt with something Naruto and Sasuke found valuable. A trade off. While it wasn't ideal, Sasuke didn't have a lot of options, so he stepped aside.

Following Sasuke's lead, Naruto gently placed Sakura on the wide branch, taking a step back as she glanced over at Kabuto.

_"Oh great…it had to be him. I still don't know why, but he gives me a weird vibe."_

_"Well, beggars can't be choosers. If he can fix our leg, then it's worth it to just put up with him."_ Inner Sakura said, pained.

Sakura watched the boy kneel next to her, unwrapping her leg as she bit her lip, trying to restrain a cry of pain as the small breeze stung it. He sucked in a breath, "Well, looks like I have my work cut out for me…"

Raising his glowing hands to her leg, she started to feel the strange sensation of her flesh and muscles pulling back together as tears of pain escaped through her eyes. Cursing her weakness she wiped them away forcefully, closing her eyes as Kabuto continued working on her leg.

After what felt like an eternity, she felt the pain ebb away and opened her eyes, the previously deep wound now a long, shallow cut. Kabuto pulled back, panting, "That's it, I can't expend anymore energy. That took a lot of chakra."

Sakura nodded, "Don't worry, you stopped my from dying anyhow. Thank you." She said, taking a long swig from her canteen before offering it to Kabuto. She shrugged and continued drinking when he shook his head, turning to Naruto and Sasuke.

"I have to head back to my team. See you guys later." He said, taking his scrolls back from Sasuke as Naruto thanked him energetically. Once he was out of sight, Sakura wrapped her leg up with the remaining bandages, not wanting to waste any chakra on an unnecessary wound. She downed a soldier pill, feeling her energy and chakra return. Doing this multiple times wasn't recommended, but she figured just this once, she would be okay.

Sakura could feel Inner Sakura now drawing the pain from the bite away as she sighed in relief. Looking up at her teammate's eyes, she stood up, testing her leg.

"Alright, are you guys okay to keep going to the tower?"

At their nod, Sakura smirked and they all took off, eager to put this test behind them.

* * *

As Kabuto travelled through the trees, he was deep in thought.

_"That girl…why did she have the curse seal? I thought Orochimaru-sama wanted the Uchiha boy? I'll have to check with him to see what he wants me to do now."_

Nodding, he changed his course, soon meeting up with a familiar snake. Entering the clearing he dropped to his knees.

"Orochimaru-sama."

"Rise, boy. What is it?"

"I was wondering what are your plans now? I saw the pink-haired girl was cursed, I thought you wanted the Uchiha?" Kabuto asked, standing.

Orochimaru turned to face his servant, "Yes you are correct, the girl got in my way and took the seal meant for the boy. However, all may not be lost, the girl has potential, perhaps even more so than the boy. She doesn't appear to have a known kekkei genkai, but she somehow defeated my snake summon and even challenged me."

A moment of silence passed as Orochimaru appeared deep in thought. Wisely, Kabuto kept his mouth shut.

"Yes…we will see how the seal reacts during the preliminary rounds then make our decision. After all, it was built with the Uchiha in mind. I do not know what will happen to the girl yet."

Kabuto nodded and bowed, "Yes master," he said before taking off to rendezvous back with his team.

**Thanks for reading! Please review! I'll bake you brownies!**


	8. Chapter 8

_**If you feel like knowing why I've been gone for so long, read this. If not, skip it. It has no value to the story.**_

**AN: Before we begin this chapter, I would just like to say a huge apology. This is my first story and I'm not exactly building a good reputation on here, having been gone for so long, without a reason. Faithful readers, reviewers, or anyone that just clicked on, know that you've made me so happy with all the attention and I'm sorry for disappearing for so long. I feel like I should explain. This isn't an excuse, just for those of you who would like to know.**

**It's been a rough time. I go to a very rigorous school. I wont say where or what grade I'm in. It's very expensive and very, very, difficult; many of our courses are classified as second year university level. In fact, we have the option to skip some first year uni courses if we want to. But I digress. Its a very stressful environment, and I'm there on a scholarship. I'm eternally grateful, but it's still a lot of pressure. Nonetheless, thats wasn't the problem.**

**On top of my school life stress, I play many sports competitively, some at the international level. Balancing out school and sports is tough, which is why I usually churn out a ton of chapters at once and post them one by one, so I have some time to write more. Again, not really the problem, I can usually deal.**

**The problem came when on top of all the stress, my family decided to add to it. Now I come from what most people call "a broken home" though I don't like that term. My parents are divorced and all they do is fight. Again, not unusual. But they like to drag us kids into it, my brother and I. They often fight and ask us to tell them what we think, essentially asking us to pick sides. And when we don't want to do it, they scream and hit us. Obviously a lot for a pair of teens to cope with. I've been called useless, fat, a waste of space, amongst other things. I've had a concussion from when they hit us a tad too hard. My brother has had to deal with a lot too. Despite all this, I still love my parents, and my brother even more so. He's protected me and I, him. **

**I should say that this stuff only happens when our parents meet. Alone, they'****re fine, like any other normal parent. But when they meet, tensions run high and I guess they have to be let out somewhere. Anyways, my brother and I have gotten quite good at predicting when these arguments happen, and we usually leave the house, staying at our respective friend's places. I thought everything was fine.**

**But it wasn't. I didn't know, but while I threw myself into my studies, writing and sports (I have a lot of penalty minutes. It's the only time I'm not nice.) to cope, my brother used something else. He got into cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, you name it. But he always came home clean. I knew he drank, but what teen doesn't at a party? I did. So I wasn't really worried. But recently he was hospitalized for a drug overdose and nearly died. They say he'll be fine, but my world is literally exploding around me.**

**How did I miss the signs? He couldn't have hid it that well, I must not have been looking hard enough. I was supposed to be his support, but I obviously wasn't good enough. I cried for days, knowing I almost lost him. I tried to talk him out of it, and he agreed, but I've caught him smoking and still doing drugs. He says he's trying, but its hard. I get that. But it's so easily to overdose on unregulated drugs. You don't know what you're getting in those, and its different from manufacturer to manufacturer. When things are illegal, there's no board of people telling you what in each pill and how much to take. **

**I can't lose him. It sounds selfish, but if I do, I may as well just off myself. He checked into rehab, but my brother is smart and strong. If he doesn't want to quit, he wont. And rehab won't make him. I've been overwhelmed with guilt and let me tell you. When your most important person is lying on a hospital bed, seeing demons and on the brink of death, you can't breathe. Everything goes numb and you just think, "Where did I go wrong?"**

**I'm an atheist, but I prayed to whatever god existed to just help him. I couldn't sleep, I lost weight, I couldn't eat without throwing up. My grades fell and I had to take a break from my sports. Every second, I just kept seeing him on the bed, trashing in the restraints as the drugs fucked with his head. I couldn't concentrate on anything. Please kids, adults, anyone. Don't ever do drugs. Don't smoke. Don't do anything that hurts the people around you. It's not worth it.**

**So my dad noticed how fucked I was, and took me out of school for a week. He told me to get back into writing. He thinks that if I have an outlet, I won't bottle everything up inside and it'll be good for me to let it out. He and my mom agreed to not meet until we were all better. They are going to deal with things privately. I'm sorry, but after this, I'm finding it hard to look them in the eye. Perhaps I'm just projecting my guilt onto them by blaming them, but they're the reason we even needed a reason to cope. Why did they have to finally pick their game up at the expense of my brother's life(almost, thank god)?**

**Anyways. That's my life so far. Maybe I'm selfish, only thinking about my life, but again, I'm just venting. Sorry about the essay. I guess my dad was right, it did feel good to get that all out. I'll let my brother know. Maybe he can use writing as a method to cope as well.**

* * *

**Without further adieu, enjoy**

**Chapter 8**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto blah blah blah.**

_"Thoughts"_

"Speaking"

"Sarutobi-sama. We have reports that Orochimaru is in the village." An Anbu with a pig's mask said, "…also, Haruno Sakura has the curse seal."

The old man nodded, deep in thought.

"Do not alert the villagers. We will continue with the chunin exams. Summon Anko." He commanded.

Shortly after, a poof was heard as Anko Mitarashi appeared before the desk of the elderly Hokage.

"You summoned me Hokage-sama?" she said politely, a stark contrast to her usual demeanor.

"Yes. Orochimaru is in the village. You know what consequences that could have. We will proceed with the chunin exams, but be on guard. Alert the other jounin. Oh and Anko, I thought you should know, but a genin has been cursed with the seal." He said authoritatively, watching as Anko disappeared, her hand on her neck.

It was times like these that Anko remembered why Sarutobi made a great leader. He always seemed to know what to do, even in the direst of time. He never panicked, and always led with wisdom.

Reaching the room where all Konoha jounin team leaders were, Anko quickly briefed them on the situation, advising them to keep their eyes open.

The tense silence held out for all of four seconds until Gai erupted with a loud bellow of, "Never fear Anko-san! The power of youth will prevail! Orochimaru, as un-youthful as he is will never triumph!"

The rest of the occupants in the room sweat-dropped as Kakashi sighed, flipping his book back open, "Mah, it was almost a serious moment too."

* * *

With a triumphant yell, Naruto bounded ahead, reaching the doors of the large tower. Rushing inside, he was followed by his equally pleased teammates. Inside, a large board with a message etched into it greeted them.

"Only when a shinobi has trained their mind and body until they can train no more, only then has their full potential been met. Without mind, the body fails. Without body, the mind cannot hold out. The two are required for a successful shinobi." Sakura read, her brows furrowed in thought.

"What does it mean?" asked Naruto.

"…I think we need to open the scrolls together…" she replied, thinking, _"You need both, huh?"_

Pulling out the scrolls, Naruto and Sasuke opened them, following their female teammate's advice, said teammate standing farther back to observe and analyze. Seeing smoke start to rise and the beginning of a summoning, her eyes widened.

"Naruto! Sasuke! Drop the scrolls!" she cried, backing up and pulling out a kunai. She watched the boys throw the scrolls down and leap away pulling out their own kunai as, sure enough, a poof was heard followed by a large cloud of smoke.

As the smoke cleared the genin stood up, surprised. They put their kunai away as Naruto voiced what they were all thinking, "Iruka-sensei? What are you doing here?"

The man smiled, "The chunins get to greet the teams that make it, so I was assigned to your team. So, congratulations on passing the second exam! I would treat you to ramen, bu-" he said, being cut off as Naruto lunged himself at the man.

"THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!" he yelled as Sakura giggled and Sasuke smirked.

Iruka scratched the back of his head as the boy clung to him. He took a good look at the team, seeing the usual; bruises, scratches, nothing severe. The worst thing looked like Sakura's leg, but that was bandaged, so he couldn't see the severity of it.

Looking at Sakura, he was surprised to see a strong kunochi staring back at him, instead of the weak, obsessed, girl she used to be. He didn't know what changed, but it appeared to be a good one and for that, he was pleased.

Iruka pried Naruto off him as he grinned, "Alright, well you guys should get going, you finished pretty early, a whole 4 days in fact! Kakashi will want to see you and then you should go get treated and rest up for the rest of the exams. I'll see you later." He said, ushering them through a set of doors.

* * *

Chatting quietly with Naruto and Sasuke as they walked to the med-nin tents, Sakura scratched at the back of her neck. Pausing mid-step she thought, _"Why didn't I look at this before? This pain obviously isn't natural. Geez Sakura, you're such an idiot. I guess the adrenaline made me kind of forget about it."_

"_Speak for yourself." _Said Inner Sakura, her voice strained as she bore the brunt of the pain.

Feeling guilt well up in her stomach, she looked up at her teammate's questioning eyes.

"Something wrong, Sakura-chan?" asked Naruto.

"Uh, yeah, is there something on my neck where that Orochimaru guy bit me?"

The boys tensed, tipping Sakura off as she took a deep breath, trying not to panic.

"Guys…what is it?" she asked.

Sasuke stepped forward, pulling off his reflective forehead protector. Pulling down the collar of her shirt, he angled the protector, showing her the strange markings covering the back of her clavicle.

Sakura sucked a breath, her eyes wide as she stuttered, "W-what is that?"

"It's Orochimaru's curse seal."

All eyes turned to the newcomer, seeing their sensei leaning against the wall with his trusty book. He smiled at them, settling the tension as he approached them, patting them all on the head.

"Good job guys, but you were very lucky you only ran into a few teams. Naruto, Sasuke, go to the med-nin tents and get treated. I need to take care of Sakura. We'll be back soon, and we'll fill you in then." He said, silencing their protests.

Shooing them off, Kakashi beckoned to the girl, walking down a dimly lit hallway.

Sakura followed him inquiring quietly, "Kakashi-sensei? What is Orochimaru's cursed seal?"

"It is a seal that allows you to increase your power by borrowing from another person, namely Orochimaru himself. However, it is a dark technique that can change a person and drive them mad. It is also incredibly difficult to control, incredibly painful initially, and people often cannot survive the activation stage. That's why I'm going to seal it before it has a chance to activate. I don't know why it hasn't already activated for you, but that's actually a good thing." He replied, scratching his head.

Sakura thought deeply.

"_Hm…strange. I know it was intended for Sasuke, but why is it not really affecting us other than the pain?"_

"_Well, Orochimaru probably never planned on two of us being here. I doubt the curse seal knows which one of us to activate on. Plus I'm drawing a lot of its power away already." _Inner said, her voice pained.

"_That's true. Don't worry Inner, Kakashi will seal it, and then tonight we'll figure out what to do with it. We have 4 days until the second exam is over, so we can deal with it later. Hm…I guess I should get some scrolls about fuinjutsu then." _Sakura thought absentmindedly.

Noticing Kakashi stop and open a door, she walked after him, seeing a room covered in strange writings. There was a design drawn on the ground with plenty of candles lighting the room.

"_Sheesh, could this get any more cliché?"_

Sakura looked at Kakashi, seeing him prepare a small bowl of ink and grab a brush. He turned to face her.

"Okay Sakura, I need you to show me the curse seal and relax. This will hurt and you will likely fall unconscious, but that's okay. Don't fight it." He said, watching her pull down the collar of her top, just as a blinding pain erupted from her neck making her cry out.

She saw black soon after, feeling herself crumple to the ground as she was caught and placed gently on the ground.

* * *

Sakura groaned, opening her eyes as she rubbed at her neck, trying to sate the itch. She opened her eyes only to be greeted with an empty room.

"_Great. The hospital."_

"_Well, I guess we sort of needed it. That seal was rough. We need to talk to Kakashi-sensei. It would be good to know more about the seals that Orochimaru and Kakashi-sensei put on us."_

"_Alright, I sense him and the boys coming to see us anyways. I'll talk to him then. He probably sensed my awakening."_

Sakura smiled, seeing the door of her room open and her teammates walk in. She was immediately glomped by Naruto, groaning as he squeezed the life out of her.

"N-Naruto! Air!" she wheezed. Seeing how that didn't work she gasped out, "Crushing the ramen!"

Naruto sprung back, eyes darting around, likely in search of his favourite food. Sakura chuckled as he turned betrayed eyes to her. She stared back, unfazed as he pouted.

"Glad to see you're doing alright Sakura-chan." Kakashi said, smiling at his female student, "We just signed your release form, you can leave now. You were only out for a couple hours. By the way, you guys can have the rest of the day off today. You'll want to rest up as much as you can after finishing that exam. We'll get back to training tomorrow."

Sasuke and Naruto nodded, walking out of the room after seeing Sakura wave them away. Turning to her sensei she asked, "Kakashi-sensei? Can you explain this seal thing?"

"Well I already explained Orochimaru's cursed seal, or at least, what we know of it. I essentially sealed that seal. You need to be careful though; my seal is dependent on your willpower to resist the curse. It can break if you severely deplete your chakra and need to use the curse seal." Kakashi replied seriously.

"But how do we get rid of Orochimaru's seal?" Sakura questioned.

"As of right now, we're not sure. It's never been done before. But don't worry Sakura; as long as you're careful, the seal shouldn't bother you. Just let me know if anything feels odd, alright?" he reassured.

Sakura nodded, climbing out of the bed. She grabbed her clothes and changed in the bathroom, accompanying Kakashi as they walked out of the hospital. Saying goodbye, she quickly ran to Hokage tower.

Being quickly admitted in, she happened upon Sarutobi, in deep thought as he read a scroll.

"Sarutobi-sama?" Sakura asked, drawing his attention. He smiled at her, though not as widely as he used to. This time, his smile seemed somewhat sad.

"Ah, hello Sakura-chan, congratulations on passing the second exam! Is there anything you need?" the old man asked.

Sakura nodded, "I know you said you would open the other vaults for me if I passed the chunin exams, but I really need some scrolls on fuinjutsu. Is it possible to get access to just those scrolls?" she asked in a pleading tone.

The old man leaned back in his chair, stroking his beard. After a long pause, he hummed, "Hmm…I suppose so…"

He grabbed a slip of paper, writing some characters down for her to bring to the scroll keeper at the vaults. Handing the paper to her he spoke, "Do your best Sakura. If anyone can figure this out, it's you."

Sakura stared back, surprised at this blunt statement. Lips turning up in a bright smile, she darted off through the doors, calling out, "Thank you Sarutobi-sama!" as she left.

* * *

Hearing a small rumbling sound, Sakura looked up from her scroll. She furrowed her brow, listening for the sound again. She heard it again, but louder, and realized it was coming from her stomach. Blushing, she mumbled to herself, "Guess I've been reading for a while, I should grab a bite to eat."

Standing up, Sakura hummed as she prepared a quick meal for herself.

"_Hmm…the only fuinjutsu I know how to do reliably are the seals to store items on scrolls. I've never seen a seal on a person, let alone one this complex. From what the texts say about the design of the seal, it looks like this seal allows me to form a connection with Orochimaru. Which makes sense, all that extra power that comes from the seal does come from him after all."_

"_Is it possible to get rid of a seal anyways?"_

"_Hmm…I don't think so…even with the sealing scrolls, the only way to remove the seal is the destroy the scroll, or the seal-caster. Dying would be sort of counter-productive, and I have a feeling Orochimaru won't be keeling over anytime soon."_

"_Well, what about altering the seal? We could change its characteristics, like how you can change the seal on a scroll to hold more items." _Inner Sakura suggested.

Sakura paused, her bite of rice halfway to her mouth.

"_Hmm…that may have some potential…I'll have to talk to Kakashi-sensei about it. Doesn't Lee-kun's teammate also have some kind of seal on him? I wonder if he'd let us study it."_

"_Like I always say, no harm in asking." _Inner Sakura replied.

"_I'll go tomorrow to morning training, see if Lee's there and ask him about his teammate then."_ She thought, washing her dishes and cleaning up her study area.

Placing the scrolls she finished tonight in a pile, she grabbed one to read in bed, eventually falling asleep.

* * *

Yawning, Sakura wiped the sleep from her eyes, rolling out of bed. Seeing the sun just about to make its way over the horizon, she packed her bag for the day, taking a quick shower. She grabbed an apple as she walked out the door, taking off to Team Gai's training ground, via the rooftops.

"_Okay, 3 days until the second exam is over. Time to get some work done." _Sakura thought, arriving at the training grounds.

Seeing a familiar green-clad boy, she smiled, "Hi Lee-kun!" sidestepping him as he appeared before her, attempting to grasp one of her hands.

Unfazed he grinned at her, "Loveliest Sakura-san! What a pleasure to see you! I take it the second exam was no trouble for you then?"

Sakura smiled nervously, "Well…sort of. But that's unimportant. Shall we spar?"

With a loud shout of delight, the boy leapt away from her as she shed her pack, readjusting her weights to make sure they wouldn't shift. Dropping into her taijutsu stance she smirked at the boy, the familiar challenge bringing a rush to her system.

She dropped low, ducking the first of many punches as she countered with a low sweep of her leg. Predictably, Lee easily leapt over it, but that wasn't her goal. As he was in the air, Sakura continued her rotation, letting the momentum from her leg sweep power her though her quick turn as she rose from the ground, slamming an elbow into Lee's solar plexus as she spun.

As Lee went flying across the field, Sakura paused.

"_What the…how the hell did I do that? That would have never worked normally." _She thought, watching her friend stand up, uninjured.

She signaled for a time out, walking over to a tree wordlessly. She sat down and closed her eyes, assuming her meditation position as she mulled this new development over. Seeing her state, Lee decided to leave her alone to her thoughts as he continued his training.

"_Inner? You saw what happened, any thoughts?"_

"_Don't get so worked up about it, you have been getting stronger you know. Plus Lee could have just let his guard down. Maybe he didn't expect your speed to have gotten so much better in his absence?"_

"_Maybe. But this strength feels odd. Like it's not mine. I think it's from the seal, to be honest. That's the only thing that seems to make sense."_

"_Why do you say that?" _Inner Sakura asked.

"_Well, Kakashi-sensei sealed it, but we don't know what seal he used or how strong it is. For all we know, it could just be strong enough to prevent the curse from taking over. And he did say that the curse seal lends us Orocimaru's power."_

"_Ah. So it could still be leaking though a little?"_

"_Does it sound that crazy?"_ Sakura questioned.

"_As if anything could sound crazy at this point. But it's worth looking into. We'll consult Kakashi-sensei soon. Until then, enjoy the newfound strength."_

"_I can't."_

"_Why's that?" _Inner Sakura said.

"_It's not my strength. I want to be strong, but all that strength to come from me. This feels like cheating."_

"_Well I guess Kakashi-sensei doesn't have to worry about you letting the curse take over. He just has to worry about you overexerting yourself."_

Sakura chuckled mentally, _"As if he would even worry. He'd probably just throw me to a pack of missing-nin, thinking I'd run away and cry."_

"_Hey now, he's been a bit better now that you've shown you can handle yourself."_

"_Only marginally. Even after I showed I was equal with Sasuke-kun, he still barely paid me any attention. Maybe he's sexist."_

With a snort, Inner Sakura kicked her outer self out of her trance, snapping her meditative concentration. Sakura opened her eyes slowly, drawing her vast stores of chakra back into her as she surveyed the area.

Seeing the sun much higher than before, she gasped, _"Oh shit, Lee! I just called a timeout; he was probably waiting for me. Dammit, I didn't realize that much time had passed! Ugh I'm such a terrible person!"_

As she beat herself up over her rudeness, she noticed a small movement in the breeze. Looking up she saw a spall scrap of paper pinned to a nearby tree. Walking over to it, she picked it up, chuckling at the note left behind by her friend.

_~Loveliest Sakura-san!_

_You appear to have something weighing on your mind, so I decided it would be un-youthful of me to disturb you! That being said, I'm afraid I must leave to meet with my team, so we will be unable to continue our spar for the time being! But not to worry! We shall continue upon our next meeting!_

_I sincerely hope that whatever is troubling you vacates your mind and you should know that I will always be here to listen or just to spar with! By the way, that was an incredibly executed strike to my solar plexus! You have improved at an incredible rate! You should be proud!_

_Until next time,_

_Lee_

Tucking the note away, Sakura smiled, some of her worries put at ease. Glancing up at the sky, she decided to walk to the bridge at an easy pace. Hopefully the easy walk around the training grounds would settle her mind. Pausing mid-stride, she smacked herself upside the head.

'_Dammit! I forgot to talk to Lee about his teammate's seal!"_

**Thanks for reading. Feel free to review.**


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

**Hello all, I'm back with another chapter for you, and I'll keep this AN short this time. I would just like to say talk you so much for the support you've given me while I'm going through this time in my life. Lonely Athena, Bloody. 5507, Angry Paradox, Kasonsama, thank you so much. Those of you who take the time just to send me a review, it truly does help. So thank you and enjoy!  
**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto blah blah blah.**

_"Thoughts"_

"Speaking"

Yawning, Sakura rolled over, her arm flopping ungracefully over the side of the red bridge as she and Team 7 waited for their ever-late sensei. As per usual, Naruto was also napping across from her, in the center of the bridge this time, still a little sore about his previous experience with the cold water of the river. Sasuke was training far away from them, but as Sakura looked closely, she could see that he was attempting to meditate, and failing horribly.

With a chuckle, Sakura stretched like a cat, her back arching as she stood up, scratching her back when Sasuke spun to face her. She regarded him levelly, "You know, if you're going to meditate, you can't lose focus when people approach."

She strolled closer, ignoring Sasuke's glare, having long grown used to it. Arriving at the tree he was sitting under, she promptly plopped down on the soft grass on the other side of the tree, assuming her meditating position.

Sakura wanted to help the boy, but she also knew that if she offered, he would take offense and just retreat further. Her years of stalking the boy had taught her that much. Instead, she settled for training beside him, always accepting should he decide to seek out her help.

With that thought, she closed her eyes and meditated, enjoying the peaceful feel of the forest. Meditating so much had allowed her to appreciate her environment more, feeling the chakra present in all living things. Trees, birds, even bugs, of which she used to be so terrified of became just part of the web of chakra that existed in the world.

"_Man, when did you get so deep?" _Inner Sakura snorted.

With a sigh, Sakura refocused. While she appreciated Inner Sakura's commentary, sometimes it was jarring when she was meditating. However, it did allow her an extra challenge when training, perhaps another reason as to why she excelled at this form of training now.

She smiled inwardly as she felt Sasuke's chakra growing more and more erratic as he likely struggled with his training, to proud to ask for help.

"_Well, pride only takes you so far. Not long till he cracks."_ Inner remarked.

"_Hmm, indeed. How did we ever like him anyways?"_

"_You were a stupid child. That's how."_

"_Hey! You're me as well, you know."_

"_Of course I know, but I'm influenced by you, so basically this was all your fault."_

"_Pfft, whatever." _Sakura scoffed mentally.

"Sakura."

Opening her eyes, emerald green orbs adjusting to the light, Sakura looked over at her scowling teammate. She waited for him to continue, not moving from her current meditative stance.

"…How do you master meditation…" Sasuke asked in annoyance, not meeting her eyes.

Sakura chuckled inwardly. Outwardly, she nodded and replied, "Meditation is something that can only be executed with perfect concentration and control over your mind and spirit. You can't go in angry, or with expectations. You just have to let it happen. Empty your mind and feel your chakra pulsing. Then you can work to expand that chakra."

Sasuke didn't reply, merely nodding and resuming a stance identical to hers. Wordlessly, they resumed their training, working their chakra coils and reserves to store and utilize more chakra more effectively. Also wordlessly, a tentative bond was formed. One of mutual respect and a desire to learn. It was an important step in their progression as a team.

Naruto had not problem accepting Sakura's newfound strength, having always been more accepting than most. It was Sasuke who felt threatened by this, but perhaps this marks a change in his demeanor. It could mean a vast improvement in their teamwork. Kakashi-sensei would be proud.

* * *

Sakura yawned. It had been a long, tiresome day of training as Kakashi-sensei was feeling particularly cruel today. Despite this, Sakura was happy. For the first time, Kakashi had treated her equal to the boys, paying her equal attention. It was as if everything in her life was finally working out. Except for that blasted curse seal.

The curse seal, although not particularly bothering her, irritated something inside her. She was frustrated, having a part of Orochimaru's spirit inside her. She hated the borrowed strength, having not earned it herself. But alas, she didn't seem to be making any progress with her studies of the seal. Her previous idea of altering the seal to stop any of Orochimaru's spirit from making the transition from his body to hers was shot down by both Kakashi-sensei and Sarutobi-sama. While the idea had merit, it was risky and needed much more research and testing before it could be attempted on a seal as complex as hers.

Lost in thought, Sakura wandered the streets of Konoha, absentmindedly avoiding the hurrying pedestrians as they made their way from vendor to vendor, completing tasks on their household chores list. Her guard was down, in her safe village, surrounded with civilians. Which is why by the time she noticed something was off, it had already begun.

Before she realized, several of the so-called, "civilians" pulled off their hats, kimonos, and regular clothing to reveal the attire of a typical band of bandits. Sakura froze as the leader started shouting at the terrified real civilians of Konoha. As he pointed his katana at the scared elderly street vendor, Sakura's eyes narrowed.

The band was apparently quite incompetent, not bothering to check for shinobi. She wondered how they snuck past the village guards. While they would be no trouble for her, she was worried about the civilians nearby. They were in a dangerous place if the band got rowdy, especially considering they didn't look like they had any formal training, so would be likely to start swinging randomly when the shit hit the fan. Sakura cursed and carefully scanned the area, looking for any other nearby shinobi who could help her.

Her eyes flickered to a boy who seemed vaguely familiar. He was subtly making signals with his hands. She glanced up, making eye contact. Seeing a forehead protector around his neck, she nodded, non-verbal communication flying between them. In a flash, they moved.

The group of bandits was small, eight in total. The boy, who Sakura later remembered to be Neji, leapt in the center of the bandits performing a modified version of the ultimate defense she saw him use in the preliminary exams in order to either knock them completely out or at the very least, startle and stun them; while Sakura remained on the outside of the bandits, using her speed to quickly move all the civilians out of danger and take on any remaining bandits who somehow managed to just skirt Neji's defense.

Within a couple minutes, all the bandits were down. After a moment of silence, a cheer rose up from the crowd. Sakura blushed as many civilians ran to thank her. Feeling slightly uncomfortable, she backed away and accepted their praise, ushering them to continue with their business. After the commotion finished, Sakura turned to take care of the bandits when she found Neji's eyes impassively observing her.

She coughed nervously. Sticking out her hand, she cracked a small smile, "Hello Neji-san! Thanks for your help! I'm Sakura by the way!"

The boy paused for a moment, before nodding and shaking her hand, "Sakura-san…you know Lee, correct."

Sakura nodded, while slapping some seals on the men and lining them up against the wall for the authorities to take care of later. "Why do you ask?" she questioned.

"…"

"_Great. Another Sasuke." Inner Sakura groaned._

"_Hm…yes, he does seem quiet reserved. Though not as bad as Sasuke. I mean he did say something at least…"_

"Uhm, Neji-san?" Sakura asked once she finished with the group of incarcerated men. Turning to face him, she continued, "I know we just met, but I've actually been meaning to talk to you about something. It's a bit of a private matter, so if you're willing to hear me out, I suggest we head to the training grounds."

After a long pause in which Sakura sweatdropped nervously, the boy finally nodded. Sakura grinned, "Great! Let's go then!" she said, nervous energy radiating off her. She spun on her heel, promptly marching off to Team 7's training grounds, expecting it to be empty as they had just finished training.

Indeed, upon arrival, she was proven correct when greeted with the deserted training grounds. Sakura turned, facing Neji. She hesitated, feeling his pearl white eyes impassively stare at her, unsure of how to start the conversation.

"_Hey, Neji, mind showing off that wicked seal?" Inner Sakura snorted._

"_Don't be stupid, we're not even supposed to really know about the seal."_

"_Well if they didn't want us to know, they should learn to hide secrets better. I mean come on! Any one can get a hold of the basic Hyuga history and figure the rest out by themselves. And everything is confirmed with the way Hinata-chan and Neji-san behave." Inner interjected._

"_Yes, but still, whether they should have hidden it better, the point still stands, how do I bring this up?" Sakura pondered, her brows furrowed as she fidgeted, much to Neji's inner amusement._

"Sakura-san. Perhaps it would be best to just begin with an explanation of what you need to talk to me about." Neji said, watching the pink-haired girl turn a light pink as she realized she was keeping him waiting. It was interesting, to say the least. From what he knew, this was the girl Lee was infatuated with. He didn't know much, other than she was a year behind him. His initial scouting reports showed her to be a simple fan-girl, obsessed over the Uchiha heir.

However, based on what he saw today, it seems she had more to offer. She still seemed innocent and was easily riled up, but she seemed to have grown a backbone, as well as some maturity. The fact that the Uzumaki boy hadn't been seen with any bruises or lumps recently attested to this theory. Indeed, she had changed a lot. Perhaps it was time he update his profiles on the other genin of Konoha. He had to be aware and prepared for anything after all.

"R-right. Sorry. Uhm…don't freak out at me, okay?" Sakura said, her hands up in a placating manner. Neji raised a brow, intrigued.

"You have my word. I will listen." He replied.

"…well…uhm. I know about your curse seal Neji." She said, quietly, noting his expression of surprise.

"…I see…so what do you need to talk to me about?" he asked, eyes guarded as he crossed his arms.

"Well…you see…I sort of need to have a look at it to help with my curse seal." She replied, tugging the collar of her shirt down to expose the black seal. Maybe it wasn't a great idea to show it to someone she didn't really know, but she was making a deal here; and in a negotiation, both parties have to be explicitly clear in order for the negotiation to work.

Despite her trust though, it seemed this negotiation was doomed to fail.

"No." Neji said bluntly, turning away to walk off.

"W-wait! Alright, maybe your seal was a bit much to ask for, but could you maybe help me with fuinjutsu? You would have more experience in the area after all. No offense." She bargained. Seeing his pause she added on, "No one has to know, I'm already training with Lee in secret, well, sort of secret. Anyways, we could just think of this as training!"

"…and what would I get in return?" Neji said, turning back to face her.

"W-what?"

"Why should I help you?"

"Well, what do you want?" Sakura asked, unsure of what should could offer. _"Shit, I don't have anything to give! I'm not rich and its not like I can teach him anything…"_

"Hn. Fight me. Now. Then we shall see." Neji said.

Sakura sighed in relief, at least she could deal with this for now. After all, its not like getting her ass kicked was new for the pinkette.

"Rules?" she asked.

"All out. Until the other cannot continue."

Sakura nodded, walking over to a nearby tree to shed her weights and check her equipment, having a feeling that she would need every advantage she could get. The weights made a satisfying dent in the hard rock ground as she dropped them and for a moment, she was surprised. She hadn't realized how much weight she got used to carrying, almost on par, relative to Lee. Of course, he was bigger, so he could carry bigger weights, but even so, she had on over double her body weight.

"_Quite a contrast from your first day, eh?" _Inner remarked.

Sakura nodded, pushing the weights off to the side. She turned, just in time to catch a glimpse of Neji's surprised face. Sakura stretched, cracking several of her bones as she loosened her body, feeling as if she was flying without the weights. Floating to the middle of the training field, she got in the taijutsu stance that Lee had taught her, gripping a kunai tightly in her right hand.

Accepting the unspoken word to begin, Neji too got into an advanced stance, his byakugen activation. It was clear this would be a long fight.

* * *

It was a very quiet fight, save Sakura's panting and the occasional thud of a kunai being deflected and embedding itself into a tree. There was no screams of jutsu's, Sakura cursed, leaping away from yet another incapacitating hit, just narrowly avoiding the blow. Luckily, thanks to her small size, fluidity and speed, Neji too was finding it difficult to hit her without doing serious damage. He was evidently a tad peeved at this, but not overly concerned. Sakura paused, gathering her scattered thoughts.

"_I don't know what to do…I won't be able to beat him with taijutsu…everytime I try something, he does that blasted chakra spinny thing and it gets repelled. Not to mention if I try to get close he's fast enough to try that gentle fist thing and close off my tenkensus. I've been holding out so far, but this fight is going nowhere and my odds are way worse than his."_

"_So long range is useless, and short range is too dangerous. Medium won't have much luck either. His defense is too good. He'll just wait for us to slip up. Taijutsu is out, we can't even get close enough to try, except when he's attacking and by then we're too focused on defending to really do anything. Besides, I don't think Lee's style of taijutsu is very good against Neji's style. At least not at our level." _Inner said.

"_If I had a powerful enough ninjutsu, that may work. We don't know how long he can keep up that barrier, although it does look like he has very good chakra control."_

"_Wait…so do you…"_

"_Now's not really the time to up my self-esteem, though I do appreciate it."_

"_No you idiot! Look at his spinny thing! He's obviously just spinning and expanding his chakra reserves."_

"…_Just like we do in training…"_

"_Exactly! And we know our reserves are huge! It'll be a gamble, because we don't know about his reserves, but worth it, I think. Our chakra may be just enough to over power his and knock that stupid defense away, enough for us to really attack!"_

"_Well, its not like we have any other options, so I guess this is our only chance. Why is it surprise is always my main aid?" _Sakura remarked.

Looking up, she looked at Neji, seeing him in the same position. Though it felt long in her head, in reality, only a few seconds had passed in real time. Catching his eye, Neji decided to speak, fueled with a spark of irritation. His battles normally weren't this long. He could feel his chakra reserves slowly being depleted. Curse this girl for being so slinky. It was irrelevant though. Her skill was far below his. She would lose. And he wanted to make sure she knew it.

"It's useless you know. Whatever you've schemed won't work. You are destined to lose. You are just not skilled enough to beat me." He said, a hint of arrogance in his tone.

Sakura glared, "Then why did you ask me to fight?"

"I wasn't aware of your skills. Now I know. It's pointless to continue."

"Well, if you want to stop, you can surrender. I'm not done." She replied, her voice like steel as anger flared in her eyes. His words stuck a chord in her that was still healing, and without knowing it, by preaching about her destiny, Neji had sealed his own fate. There would be no mercy. Either he lost, or she died trying.

Moving faster than ever before, Sakura leapt into the air, calling out, "Fire style: Great fire dragon!" Like in the forest of death, a large dragon, composed of fire erupted from her mouth as she expelled the air in her lungs. It let out a monstrous roar, startling several nearby people, shinobi and civilians alike. Kakashi looked up from his book as his eye narrowed, along with his long-time friend, Gai, who earlier had been pestering him about yet another contest to prove who was better. The two shinobi looked at each other and quickly made their way to the training grounds.

The fire dragon lunged for Neji and he smirked, commencing his Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven seconds before the large dragon made impact. His eyes widened though, when the dragon suddenly disintegrated before his barrier. The cause of this was what looked like another Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven technique, but that was impossible.

Unable to stop his rotation this quickly, Neji had no other option to brace for impact when the larger sphere of chakra collided with his own, erupting in a huge explosion the threw him across the training ground, impacting heavily with a tree. He didn't have a moment to catch his breath however, until a pink-haired menace was on him, attacking furiously with chakra laden punches and kicks. Even when Neji managed to close some of her tenkensus off, the non-chakra-infused punches hurt almost as much and it wasn't long until she somehow repaired her sealed tenkensus on the fly.

Truth be told, Neji was flabbergasted. However, he did not appreciate being her personal punching bag and quickly overcame his surprise, anger clouding his judgment as he attacked back with a viciousness rivaling her own. The two genin traded blows, glaring at each other as they met, the clink of weapons sounding, along with the thuds of soft flesh being impacted.

Every time Neji tried another Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven, Sakura would combat with her own version, effectively destroying his main defense. Neji was stunned at what she was doing, but didn't exactly have time, or the right state of mind to ponder. It be came clear that he could no longer use that without wasting a large amount of chakra.

The two met, in the middle of the destroyed ground, their kunai clashing together as the duo grappled for leverage to overcome the other. They were quickly tiring and Sakura knew she couldn't last much longer. As he slowly pushed Sakura down, his strength superior as he infused chakra in his muscles. She knew her reserves were running dangerously low, and in hind sight, she shouldn't have gotten so carried away, infusing her punches with way too much chakra in the hope of just knocking him out. True, she had better chakra control, but his reserves were still bigger than hers, it seemed. It was likely that Neji would win.

A typical shinobi would take the win and leave.

But yet again, Neji's arrogance won out and he had to have the final word. "Enough of this nonsense! You are too weak to best me! Give up!" He panted, gritting his teeth.

Sakura's mouth turned up in a snarl at his words and with a blast of chakra from the very depth of her reserves, she screamed, "Shut…the…fuck…up! You…arrogant…PRICK!"

As Neji's eyes widened yet again, he found himself flying in mid air straight for a building as he exited the clearing at a high velocity, with an enraged kunochi after him. It seemed the Hyuga never learnt his lesson.

Turning in mid air, all he could do was react as the girl aimed precise hits to his body, designed to hurt as badly as possible. He felt his jaw crack as he failed to dodge one.

Twisting as the building approached, Neji braced most of the impact, using it to propel himself directly at the girl, kunai drawn. To which she replied with her own, the pairs respective chakras colouring the grey metal. Directly before they met, both parties felt a force holding them back, inches away from striking each other. He saw the surprise register on Sakura's face until her eyes rolled in the back of her head and she collapsed into the force, now identified as Kakashi-sensei. Wasting no time, the man in the mask leapt for the hospital.

**Thanks for reading! Please review!**


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

**Ahhhhh new chapter, what!**

**To answer some questions, they are still in the chunin exams, but in my story those that finished early were allowed to leave the tower, just cause I couldn't see Sarutobi being able to keep all those genin (especially Gaara) in such close quarters without the help of many jonin, at which point its not very cost-effective. So I let them go about their business. And oops, sorry, I said Neji's eyes were deep brown, which they're obviously not. So I went back and changed it, sorry!**

**Also, there will be a pairing, as I don't think it's realistic that no one would pursue Sakura. Who she ends up with, I'm undecided. But I'm in no rush. I'm a bit partial to Neji or Shika, as I could see them being a good match for her, with some development of course. But hey, if you have ideas, I'm all for it!**

**I also received a pm criticizing me for straying so far from the original canon, so I figured now was a good time to re-iterate. Obviously this is really far from canon, I'm not trying to stick to the original storyline. So things will obviously be way different, including characters, the plot, etc. In fact, after the chunin exams, there will probably be no resemblance to the canon storyline anymore. I ask that you take it in stride and just read. If you really want the canon, go read the mange or watch the anime.**

**Lastly, this chapter is dedicated to silverwolfigther00 for giving me an extra incentive to write. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be mean :3 Anyways, it made me chuckle, so thanks!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto blah blah blah.**

_"Thoughts"_

"Speaking"

Neji got quite an earful from his own sensei as he was being healed himself, but he found it hard to pay attention. Instead he was frustrated with himself. How could a little nobody almost beat him? For all he knew, she might have, had their senseis not intervened. To think, he was almost ready to call the match, feeling it a waste of time, when she suddenly attacked him.

He had no idea what changed and it was bothering him. By all rights, he should have won the battle easily, being one year her superior and a prodigy. But he didn't. It was a tie. Something suddenly changed in her and he didn't know what. And if there was one thing Neji Hyuga hated, it was unpredictability.

"Neji! My eternal rival!"

"_Oh great. On top of everything…" _the young Hyuga thought.

"What is it Lee?" he asked.

"How un-youthful your responses are! I was merely curious about Sakura-chan! I saw you two walking and talking! How dare you Neji! She is my lovely blossom!" Lee cried, becoming more and more flustered as her spoke.

"…We're not involved."

"You lie! How could you resist my lovely Sakura-chan, no man could!"

"…Lee…shut up. Besides. If she's yours, should you be in the hospital with her?" Neji huffed, rolling his eyes at Lee's undisguised shock and horror until he sprinted to the hospital.

No, Neji Hyuga had no romantic interests towards one Sakura Haruno. He was merely interested as to the source of her strength. There was more hiding in her, and he would find out. After all, he could very well have to face her in the future and he needed to be able to win.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Sakura didn't know it but during her stay in the hospital, she was the subject of scrutiny by several people. Her teammates, sensei, Lee, even her parents stopped by, although they didn't exactly have any words of comfort to exchange. But the main culprits were the doctors. She confounded them and Kakashi. The damage to her body, the lack of a curse seal, her depleted chakra, it just didn't make was clear she had over taxed her reserves, there was barely any chakra left in her. And yet, the seal still lay dormant.

Seeing her, several thoughts and emotions rushed though Kakashi's mind. He was aware that only recently had he been treating the girl like her male teammates. He was also aware that she had been getting stronger. But he liked to think that he wasn't so ignorant to her to miss the fact that she almost killed herself trying to take down the Hyuga. If anything, he thought that would be Naruto or Sasuke, given that they're usually more reckless than Sakura. And if he missed something this big about Sakura, who knows what he could have missed with the boys. It seemed he may need to re-evaluate his team.

He hoped she would wake up soon. He needed to talk to her, about her decisions, her training, and most importantly, her seal.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It was the day of the end of the second exam when Sakura woke up. Sunlight streamed into her empty white hospital room while she blinked blearily, the only thing registering was the intense pain of her healing chakra pathways. Her physical wounds felt like nothing compared to this. She groaned loudly, raising her hand, green chakra glowing.

"_Hey Inner….mind sapping out some of the pain so I can heal us?" _she asked, knowing that if she tried, the pain would become so intense she could just knock herself out again.

She heard a resounding sigh, which she took to mean a reluctant yes. Feeling the pain dissipate, Sakura ran her glowing hand over her body, wincing as some of the pain escaped. She took her time, wanting to be thorough, taking care to not screw anything up. When she was satisfied, she let the healing chakra disappear. Taking that as a cue, Inner Sakura released the pain, the only thing remaining after her healing job being the soreness of her body. She would let the Konoha healers take care of that.

"_Kami that hurt."_

"_Sorry Inner, I figured it would be better to get it over with, instead of dragging it out."_

"_Maybe, but it still sucked."_

Sakura chuckled, stretching in her bed slowly. Glancing out the window, she noticed that it was only morning.

"Oh my goodness! You're awake!" a voice shouted.

Sakura turned to see a surprised nurse, who quickly turned tail and ran, likely to get a doctor. Not long after, said doctor arrived, seemingly just as surprised.

"Haruno-san, it's a pleasure to see you up already. And after only a couple days!" he exclaimed.

Sakura's eyes widened, "A couple days?! I've been out for that long?" she asked, stunned.

"Well, yes, but we expected you to be out for at least a week. Your injuries were quite extreme. The damage to your chakra pathways…it was…large, to say the least. Speaking of which, you must be in a lot of pain, I'll have a look at them" he said, handing his clipboard to the nurse before walking over. His hands glowed the familiar green, moving along Sakura's skin. He gasped.

"I-I don't believe it! Your pathways…they're healed! But how?" he questioned.

"That? Oh I just healed them myself, they were kind of bothering me." She replied, unfazed.

"I-I see…" he replied, "Well, I'll take care of the rest of your injuries then…" green hands healing all the soreness and tension from her muscles, sealing up any smaller cuts and bruises. Pretty soon, Sakura felt like she was back to normal.

"Well, I don't see any reason to keep you any longer. The second exams are over today anyways, so you'll be fine for that. Don't worry, they end a couple hours from now." He said, noticing the girl's distress.

Sakura sighed, relieved that she would still be able to participate in the rest of the exams. Saying a quick thank you to the doctor, she signed herself out, leaving the dreary hospital. She took her time, walking slowly in the direction of her house to pick up the rest of her gear that she would need for the exams.

Making it to her house without a problem, Sakura pondered what to do next.

"_I have a couple of hours to kill. I guess I'll go meditate by the bridge? Test out our chakra pathways, make sure they're ready to go."_

"_Good idea. It'll give me a moment to rest after that pain too."_

"_Right, sorry about that. I guess I lost control."_

"_I don't blame you. I would have kicked that arrogant son of a bitch to Suna after what he said."_

"_Yeah, the jerk. Anyways, I'll try not to exhaust myself in the process. Hey…wait a second…I almost completely depleted my chakra reserves…should that curse seal have activated?" _she pondered, arriving at the red bridge.

"_Ah that, I forgot to say, turns out when the seal is trying to take over, it doesn't work the way we thought it would. Instead of pushing his chakra directly into your reserves, it detours to your mind first, probably to influence your thoughts and personality. So because of that, I can actually hold him off quite easily."_

"…_oh…"_

"_Not bad being insane is it?"_

"…_I suppose. I mean that's good and all, but a bit anti-climactic."_

"_Well you still need to get rid of the seal, I'm just holding it back."_

"_True. Alright anyways, time to get to work." _Sakura thought, flopping down on the bridge, assuming her trusty meditation stance.

Sinking easily into a meditative state, she first ran a diagnostic check on her chakra networks and reserves. Deeming them suitably repaired, she commenced her usual process, being sure to set the little portable alarm she kept in her ninja pack, just incase she lost track of time.

Sakura always loved meditating. It gave her a sense of peace, along with the knowledge that she was indeed getting stronger. It also helped her to feel protected, being able to detect people when they disturbed the aura produced by her chakra. Of course, some shinobi could still sneak past this, though it was no easy task and only capable by a truly skilled shinobi as Kakashi proved.

"Yo."

For years later, Sakura still insisted that she didn't shriek like her younger self when she caught Sasuke with his shirt off.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I see. So that's what happened with your fight against Neji. I must say Sakura-chan, I'm impressed. You gave the Hyuga prodigy a run for his money. Though you were incredibly stupid in the process." Kakashi said, watching the young girl scratch her head sheepishly.

"Yeah…well the jerk deserved it." She replied, brows furrowing, eyes shooting daggers at the innocent bridge, and nostrils flaring in anger as she recalled the fight. Kakashi felt a shiver run up his spine. The girl was surprisingly menacing when she tried.

Clearing his throat to snap her out of her glaring match with the red wood, "ahem…right…I was meaning to ask about your seal."

"Oh! Right! Why didn't it do anything Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked, despite the fact she already knew.

"Well…I was hoping you could tell me. You really depleted your chakra stores, it should have taken over you, and yet it didn't, even though you were unconscious."

"Well I don't know Kakashi-sensei, I'm not the master at fuinjutsu here." She teased, poking her tongue out at the man. Sobering up, she said solemnly, "All I know is I really, really, REALLY hated this seal and I didn't want it to take me over, even if I was about to die."

Kakashi paused, a tad taken aback at her quiet tone. How much had this girl changed and how in the world did he miss it?

Feeling the familiar feeling of guilt well up inside him, Kakashi said suddenly, "…I see…you know Sakura-chan…I think it's time I apologized."

Seeing the girls head pop up quickly, surprised and confusion evident on her features, Kakashi continued.

"I know I didn't pay you equal attention and I know I ignored you a lot. Because of that, I underestimated you and I forced you to seek training somewhere else. You shouldn't have needed to go elsewhere, but you had no other choice. Only recently have I noticed how much you've grown." He said.

As Sakura was about to reply, he continued, surprising her even more. She didn't think she'd even seen him so vocal.

"You've always been capable, but I doubted you, and for that, I'm sorry. You've become so strong and so powerful. You have a razor sharp mind and steel will. I've never been so proud of a student. I just wish I had a part in this change." Kakashi said, his tone serious and disappointed.

Sakura stared at her sensei, her face still suspended in disbelief. This was exactly what Sakura had been complaining about for ages. She had no idea the lazy, perverted man she called a teacher could be so mature. Feeling her heart warm, she smiled at the dejected looking man.

"Cheer up, old man. You were partly the reason I decided to change, and besides, I wasn't much of a kunochi to start, no wonder you ignored me! But if it means so much to you, then I accept your apology." She teased, poking her tongue out to further put the man at ease. Her efforts were rewarded with a chuckle from the silver-haired male as he sat up straighter.

"Mah…such a touching moment. Anyways, we should get going to the exams. We're about, oh…an hour late."

Jaw dropping; Sakura scrambled for her supplies, quickly packing them up as she panicked, "What! Goddammit! What happened to my alarm?" she wailed.

"Oh that? I turned it off. It would have been loud and annoying." Kakashi replied, crinkling his eye at her death stare, sweat dropping as Sakura began to snarl.

"Now, now, you should get going, don't want to be anymore late, right?" he placated, arms out in an appeasing manner as the man slowly backed away.

Sakura glared before turning away to prepare her teleporting jutsu, "I'll get you back. Somehow." She said ominously.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Appearing in a puff of smoke in the tower, she was quickly led over to where the other genin were assembled, once she explained that she had actually completed the exam days earlier, she just got stuck with Kakashi-sensei. Hearing the name, the staff was much more accepting, the copy-nin's reputation known far and wide for constantly being late.

She rushed into the arena, where the first match was already underway. Finding Naruto and Sasuke, she was explained the situation. Too many genin passed the exam, so they were having preliminaries to whittle down the numbers, for fear of boring the powerful and influential audience that would attend the third exam. Sakura nodded in reply, turning to watch the match between two unknown genin.

As the preliminaries proceeded, Sakura made sure to pay close attention to her competition, knowing that she could face any of the winners in the third exam, providing she made it through.

As Sasuke and Naruto both had their matches, she cheered loudly, through she was careful not to mention names in Naruto and Kiba's case, being a good friend to them both. She winced as she watched Kiba lose, but the worse of all was Lee.

Although she didn't reciprocate his feelings for her, the boy was still important; being a good friend, a great teacher, and a huge support. During his fight with Gaara, she fought not to look away, not wanting to show weakness, but inside, her heart felt like it was being squeezed, watching her good friend get beat nearly to death.

She saw injuries like that, in the medical scrolls that she read. There was a low chance that he could ever be a ninja again, the damage so extensive. Only a medic incredibly skilled could save him, and not of those were currently in Konoha.

Watching the boy getting wheeled out, she took in a shaking breath, looking up to find the redheaded boy looking at her with malice in his eyes. She glared back viciously, noting the slight surprise in his eyes as he looked away. She growled mentally, _"The bastard. He didn't have to go so far. He wanted to kill Lee."_

"_I know. If we face him later, we have to beat him. For Lee." _Inner Sakura said, determined, balling her hand in a fist.

"Uhm…Saku-chan?" a voice said timidly.

Snapping out of her inner tirade, Sakura looked up to find Naruto indicated to the board.

**Sakura Haruno vs. Ino Yamanaka**

Staring at the girl waiting in the ring, Sakura took a deep breath, fighting to calm her nerves.

"_Easy, easy…settle down. It's useless to fight if we're angry."_ Inner said, her words soothing Sakura's troubled spirit.

Opening her eyes back up, Sakura leapt over the railing, landing several meters away from the smug, blonde girl.

"Che, took you long enough forehead-girl. What, too scared to fight me?" Ino taunted, surprised when Sakura merely stared back, expressionless as she waited for the signal to begin.

Seeing it, Sakura slid into a defensive posture, awaiting a move by Ino. Having grown up with the girl, she knew Ino could be sly why she wanted to. Although Sakura was confident enough that she could beat Ino easily under normal circumstances, she wouldn't put it past the girl to pull a fast one. She couldn't underestimate her.

"_To be a skilled shinobi, always battle as if your opponent is stronger than you. Take no shortcuts."_ Sakura and her inner said in unison. Thus Sakura rapidly began formulating counterattacks and plans for every action Ino could take. She strategized her victory a number of different ways, her brain making connections and formulating ideas in a flash.

Sakura knew of Ino's techniques. She was a good actress and could screw up a person's mind if needed. Luckily Sakura's mind was already screwed up. The only one that Sakura didn't have a black up plan for was Ino's Mind Transfer Jutsu, having never really studied it previously. From what she knew, Ino needed two things for it to work. Some kind of contact with the victim, and she needed to catch her victims in that hand sign that she did.

Sakura knew she could probably run fast enough that Ino couldn't catch her or use a long-range attack, but she didn't want to showcase her speed, or any advanced taijutsu or ninjutsu. She needed to save those for the third exam. So to defeat Ino quickly without using any of her true skills would be tricky. She only had a couple of plans thought out for this.

Luckily for Sakura, she had plenty of time to develop her plans as it seemed Ino had no interest in fighting currently. All the Konoha genin knew of the two girl's history and the foreigners didn't care. So the girls had plenty of quiet to talk things out.

"So forehead, you seem quiet. What's wrong? I'll try not to beat you too badly, I wouldn't want Sasuke-kun to hate me for hurting his little teammate." She mocked, placing her hands on her hips as she beamed up at the stands, seeing Sasuke glare back.

Sakura sighed, relaxing her stance. Placing her kunai back in her holster, she plopped down on the ground, sitting cross-legged. She rested her head on her hands as she watched Ino, bored. She let out a yawn, smacking her lips as she toyed with chakra in her palm, forcing it to change to different elements.

"Oi, forehead, are you stupid? What are you doing? Are you really that weak you're just letting me win?"

Sakura tensed slightly at being called weak, but managed to restrain herself, knowing that Ino was merely frustrated at her lack of response. In Ino's world, a few things were constant. Her love for Sasuke and Sakura's competition. Seeing one of those change was throwing her off.

"I don't see a point in standing when you're not going to fight." Sakura replied, juggling a ball of fire, water, and lightning in her hand. Although it looked like a simple task, it actually required a fair amount of control. Most genin couldn't do it, but Sakura was known for her control, so this wasn't anything new.

Ino huffed turning red. _"I'll show you!" _she thought angrily, easily capturing Sakura in her mind transfer jutsu. _"Ha! Forehead, weak as always."_ She thought from Sakura's body, watching her own fall to her knees and slump. There was a light murmuring from the crown in which Ino preened.

"_Hey Ino. I'm not weak anymore. When you're ready to fight me for real, train. Then come find me." _Inner Sakura said from behind Ino, slapping a sutra on the girl before she could react, paralyzing her, before ejecting her out of Sakura's mind easily, much to Ino's shock.

Finding herself in her own body, Ino quickly realized that Sakura had got the better of her. She had come in, distracted and arrogant and this was a slap in the face of reality. Without her knowing, Sakura had somehow managed to eject Ino and paralyze her in her own body. She wailed in her mind as she watched Sakura stand up, declaring Ino unable to fight.

She grumbled as she was prodded, before Sakura was declared the winner. She felt movement return to her body as Sakura released whatever she did to her. Sitting up she glared at Sakura's back, huffing in anger as the girl walked away calmly. Inwardly she was shocked at the changes in Sakura, along with several others who had just seen her for the first time in a while. Shaking her head in denial, Ino let herself be carted off, still believing that she was stronger, that this was just a fluke.

"Saku-chan, good job! Why didn't you beat the stuffing out of her though?" Naruto asked, tilting his head to the side and the next challengers fought.

Sakura grinned, "Well, I didn't want to show anyone my skills yet. Element of surprise and all that." she said sheepishly, "Sorry if it was boring."

Shaking his head quickly, he reassured her that it wasn't, just unexpected. Sakura giggled at the boy, laughing at his antics as a few other genin observed her. Neji, Shikamaru, and Gaara all viewed the girl, several different thoughts running through their head. One of annoyance, one of curiosity and respect, and one of mild intrigue.

When the preliminaries finished, the remaining genin gathered in the arena, listening to the jonin supervisor and the hokage explain the reason for the exams as well as how the third exam would proceed. Despite this, Sakura found herself unable to focus, chills racing up her spine as she felt a stare of bloodlust directed at her.

Looking around subtly, she saw that it wasn't from any of the genin, but she couldn't find the source of it. Sighing and shrugging her shoulders, she tried not to let it bother her as she drew her number, glancing up at the scoreboard to see who she would be fighting in a months time.

**I know mind transfer doesn't actually work like that, but hey, like I said, my story. Oh and by the way, just to explain, because Ino doesn't know about Inner, she just assumes that Sakura managed to master her own mind, controlling her subconscious and conscious as one when necessary. In fact, this is impossible. Inner pretends to be more like Sakura though, to lead Ino to this conclusion, not wanting anyone to find out about her split mental state. She knows Ino will be too embarrassed to blab, so she's not worried about her learning that her theory is impossible.**

**Thanks for reading! Please review and tell me who Sakura should fight! I have ideas for pretty much everyone and cant choose! ahhhhhh**


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